Aug 21, 2012 5:19 PM

A stronger, fouler wind seems to blow in during the last month of a Hamptons summer. As the sun begins to set earlier and earlier, many locals say there also is a noticeable change in the type of visitor to the East End once the calendar turns to August.

While some say they don’t see a noticeable difference, others are positive that the area’s August visitors are shorter-tempered, less patient and walk around with a greater sense of entitlement.

“It wasn’t like this in May,” said Rayeal White, who works as a clerk in the bakery at Waldbaum’s in Southampton Village in the summer. “Now, it’s mayhem.”

Sitting outside on his break one recent day, Mr. White, who lives in Brooklyn in the winter, said that earlier in the summer more families and locals frequented the supermarket. Now, younger customers from out of town, many of them rude, flood the store most days.

Seventeen-year-old Tyler McCor of Southampton, who was sitting outside the supermarket the same day, said August visitors have bad tempers, far worse than other visitors, when they don’t get their way. “Before August, visitors were more relaxed and patient,” he said. “At the beginning, it’s okay.”

A bartender at Barristers on Main Street in Southampton Village, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that those who stop in for a drink in August are “a little bit more pretentious and selfish.”

“It’s a ‘It’s my world and you live in it’ type of thing,” she said of their collective attitudes. “It’s a lack of awareness, and they don’t think that people live here” year-round.

The bartender, who also works in real estate, said she attributes that attitude to the fact that everyone wants to visit the Hamptons in August. “August is the highest price-point,” she said, referring to the cost of house and motel rentals. “Most of them are pretentious and flashy who need to be here in August.”

She also pointed out that those visiting the East End in August are trying to squeeze in one last vacation before summer ends and, as a result, some might be a tad bitter that fall and, inevitably, winter are just around the corner.

Likewise, Francesco Gardner, the co-owner of Villa Italian Specialties in East Hampton, said he’s noticed that late-summer visitors are more in a rush to soak up the last bits of the season. “They’re nervous that their summer is slipping away,” he said. “Everybody’s trying to cram as much summer as they can in the last two weeks.”

Noting that she sees an influx of customers in August, Lynne Jones, the owner of Lynne’s Cards and Gifts on Main Street in Westhampton Beach, said the month is always a little more frantic, because people are sensing the imminent end of summer.

“Locals get frustrated and a little bit apprehensive,” she said. “Some of us stick to the back roads. A lot of people don’t always know the rules of the road, and it’s not that they’re doing it intentionally—they’re either not used to driving or not used to driving here.”

Walking the streets of Southampton Village every day, a U.S. Postal Service worker, who asked to remain anonymous, agreed that people now visiting the area have far less patience than those who spent time here in June and July. “They’re squeezing in their vacation,” he said. “They don’t have the whole summer to blow. They are all just clueless as far as driving goes. They honk a lot more, and they’re rude to each other.”

The mailman said people often treat him as if he doesn’t exist, and many don’t move when he needs to get by them while delivering the mail. “It’s gotten a little better over the years, though,” he added.

Although he said he hasn’t thought about it very much, Henry Hildreth, the owner of Hildreth’s Department Store on Main Street in Southampton Village, said there is a little bit more of a sense of urgency among shoppers these days. “Some people think if they don’t get it now, why bother getting it?” he said.

In his opinion, Mr. Hildreth said some people might have shorter tempers in August because of the humidity, the dwindling summer days and because of the highly competitive nature of those visiting the Hamptons.

“It seems like the expediency of things needs to happen very quickly in order to satisfy a lot of different people,” he said. “It’s not bad, necessarily—it shows the American spirit in a different light.”