Amid anger in Port Jefferson over late-night e-bike disturbances, officials consider a crackdown

Late-night gatherings of scooter and e-bike riders in Port Jefferson parking lots have prompted village and Brookhaven Town officials to step up enforcement and consider enacting tougher rules prohibiting disorderly conduct, officials said.

Residents speaking at a recent village board meeting said they lose sleep from hearing electric bike riders, most of them young, doing doughnuts and other tricks in parking lots, including one at a town-owned marina.

Bike riders usually manage to escape before police arrive, residents said.

Mayor Lauren Sheprow and Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico, in separate phone interviews, said they plan to step up enforcement and seek help from Suffolk County police.

“It was happening enough that it was causing great concern — too much,” Sheprow said, adding that village code enforcement officers have sought to disperse crowds. “It’s concerning enough that it is impacting public safety and health in our village. It is not OK.”

A public hearing on a village plan to toughen its public disturbances law will be held Wednesday.

Panico, who said the town's Port Jefferson boat facility is "the busiest marina in Brookhaven Town," said town public safety officers have stepped up patrols.

"It's not a unique problem, because every town is dealing with it," he said, adding Brookhaven officials are seeing a proliferation of two-wheeled electric vehicles "in every public and private parking lot" in the town.

Some Long Island officials have warned of the risks incurred when electric bikes are used around more conventional vehicles.

On Sept. 5, a Queens man was killed in Medford when his e-bike collided with a pickup truck on Route 112 and Woodside Avenue, Suffolk police said.

In Glen Cove, city police are ramping up enforcement of illegal electric vehicles that they say are dangerous to motorists and pedestrians.

The laws regarding electric bikes can be murky, Newsday has reported. Some of the e-bikes are legal, some not, depending on factors such as municipal jurisdiction and vehicle speed.

Some Port Jefferson residents who attended an Aug. 27 village board meeting said the e-bikes are keeping them up at night.

“We’re trying to sleep," said Eric R. Santiago, who lives near the town marina parking lot where large crowds gathered late at night this summer. “They’re doing doughnuts at 11 o’clock at night. You can look at the tire marks.”

Suffolk County Police Sgt. Steven Tesoriero, who patrols the village for the police department, said public disturbance calls in the village were up 39.8% so far this year, to 116 in 2025, compared with 83 during the same period in 2024.

“The majority are this group of kids on bikes that are pretty much wreaking havoc,” Tesoriero said at the village board meeting. He added police plan to “deploy some additional resources to try to get a resolution to this.”

Port Jefferson officials have drafted a code amendment that would specify parking lots are covered by village laws prohibiting public disturbances, according to a draft copy of the resolution. Village law currently refers to streets, sidewalks and parks, but not parking lots.

The law update also would impose unspecified penalties for infractions, the resolution says.

A public hearing on the measures will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at Village Hall.

For now, Sheprow said, village officers have been instructed to closely monitor parking lots for unlawful activity.

“Our code enforcement folks have been working hard indicating to people that they should be moving on," she said, "and they’ve been very compliant, honestly.”