Since most sons and daughters are well passed the age when cutesy homemade cards made in grammar school would suffice, everyone else has to find more grown-up ways to get creative.

But fear not, the Long Island Press is in the same boat. To help with this annual dilemma, here’s a list of Mother’s Day events to either shop for a gift or  bring mum herself on her big day.

Don’t forget the flowers!

Weekend-long events:

Mother’s Day Fair. Green Acres Mall, 1 E. Merrick Rd. Valley Stream. 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Mother’s Day Plant Sale. Munns Pond County Park, 228 West Montauk Highway. Hampton Bays. 10 a.m. -4 p.m.

Mother’s Day Craft & Gift Show, Christopher Morley Park 500 Searingtown Rd. Roslyn. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Mother’s Day Crafts. Maritime Explorium, 101 East Broadway Port Jefferson. 1-5 p.m.

Saturday

Mother’s Day Art & Craft Fair. Northport High School, Corner of Laurel Hill & Elwood Rd. Northport. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mother’s Day Yoga by the Sea! Whaling Museum, 279 Main St. Cold Spring Harbor. 11 a.m.

Mothers’ Day Floral Design, Old Westbury Gardens, 71 Old Westbury Rd. Old Westbury. 12-1 p.m.

Mother’s Day Crafts. Garvies Point Museum, 50 Barry Drive. Glen Cove. 12-3 p.m.

Spa Science with Mom. Long Island Science Center, 11 West Main St. Riverhead. 3-5 p.m.

Sunday

Mother’s Day Dinner. Rockwell’s Bar & Grill, 60 Terry Rd. #7 Smithtown

Carl Hart Mother’s Day Duathlon. Heckscher State Park, Islip. 9 a.m.

Spring Lake’s Mother’s Day nine. Spring Lake Golf Club, 30 E. Bartlett Rd. Middle Island. 10 a.m.

Mother’s Day at the Hatchery. Fish Hatchery and Aquarium, 1660 Route 25A. Cold Spring Harbor. 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Mother’s Day Brunch. Long Island Aquarium & Exhibition Center, 431 East Main St. Riverhead. 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

Mother’s Day Brunch. Garden City Hotel, 45 Seventh Street, Garden City. 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Mother’s Day Dinner. Glen Cove Mansion, 200 Dosoris Lane, Glen Cove. 1-4 p.m.

Celebrate Mother’s Day. Perfecto Mundo Latin Bistro, 1141-1 Jericho Turnpike. Commack. 1-7 p.m.

Glen Cove city police released this image of the marijuana.

Three men were arrested for possession of 43 pounds of marijuana with a street value of up to $60,000 in Glen Cove on Friday afternoon, police said.

Damion Cox, 31, of Queens, 45-year-old Voncliff Bish of Mount Vernon and 50-year-old Devon Wheatley of the Bronx were each charged with felony marijuana possession after Glen Cove city police stopped the vehicle they were in on Brewster Street, police said.

Police had learned that the marijuana was being shipped to a Mail Boxes, Etc. on that street and pulled them over after watching the suspects load the package into the vehicle, authorities said.

Officers also seized more than $2,000 in cash from the suspects, police said.

While notable, the bust isn’t the biggest that Long Island has seen of late. A Bellport woman was arrested for 92 pounds of pot in January, a Roosevelt man was nabbed for 220 pounds of weed in 2011 and two people were charged with having 800 pounds of marijuana also in 2011.

Bail for Cox, Bish and Wheatley was set at $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. They are due back in court Tuesday.

Among the changes in the newly redrawn Nassau County legislative district maps is that the Five Towns area was split up between four districts.

Nassau County legislators approved new district lines despite rowdy critics packing the chamber who accused the Republican majority that drew the map of gerrymandering to protect their power for the next decade.

Lawmakers voted 10-9 along party lines Tuesday in favor of the GOP’s redistricting plan that forces four legislators—two Democrats and two Republicans—into two districts, potentially forcing them to primary each other. Audience members chanted “shame, shame” in unison immediately after the vote.

“This is the best map that we can provide for the citizens of Nassau County,” said Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow), who had adjourned a marathon meeting that ran past midnight last week in order to tweak the lines. “I think we did as best we could under the circumstances.”

Redistricting is required under federal law after the census every 10 years to adjust legislative districts at all levels of government to make up for population shifts. But critics of the process allege that the lines were redrawn to give Republicans a chance to pick up another three seats, which would give them a supermajority.

Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn) and Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove) will be forced to primary one another after their homes were redrawn into one district. The same goes for Legis. Michael Venditto (R-North Massapequa) and Legis. Joseph Belesi (R-Farmingdale), who’s reportedly planning to retire.

“This fight is not over,” said Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead) after questioning the number of public hearings that were held and urging the public to lobby County Executive Ed Mangano to veto the legislation.

Fred Brewington, a Hempstead-based civil rights attorney, testified before the legislature last week that he intends to challenge the map in court based on alleged Voting Rights Act violations.

Republican legislators bristled at repeated accusations that they are racist based on allegations that the map they drew is intended to disenfranchise minority voters who typically vote for Democrats.

“Nobody is here to cause consternation and unhappiness,” said Frank Moroney, chairman of Nassau’s Temporary Districting Advisory Commission, who defended the map as meeting the constitutional guarantee of “one person, one vote.”

Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick), whose house had been redrawn into a neighboring district to force him to run against Legis. Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin), was relieved when the map was redrawn to not pit the two Democrats against one another, but remained critical of the revision.

“It’s all just a desperate attempt to carve 12 Republican districts out of 19 in a county that is a third Republican at this point,” Denenberg said, referring to a nearly 36,000-enrollment advantage Democrats have over Republicans—368,049 Dems vs. 332,197 GOP out of 960,331 registered voters in Nassau, according to the New York State Board of Elections.

Among the changes in the newly redrawn Nassau County legislative district maps is that the Five Towns area was split up between four districts.

The Republican-controlled Nassau County legislature is close to approving redrawn district lines that will force four Democratic incumbents into two districts when they seek re-election this fall despite legal challenges and accusations of gerrymandering.

The new political map will also put two Republicans into the same district as a part of the once-a-decade redistricting process required to ensure legislators represent an equal amount of residents based on 2010 census data. County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican, is expected to sign the new map into law, if it passes as widely anticipated at the legislature’s next meeting on March 4.

“This is not an easy task,” Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said before adjourning the meeting shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday. She pleaded at times for the audience not disrupt the meeting in the packed legislative chamber of the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola, reminding the crowd that redistricting is legally required “in order to guarantee the constitutional protection of one person, one vote.”

Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) had his 10-block-wide sliver of his neighborhood lump his house into the neighboring district, pitting him against Legis. Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin). Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove) saw her district merged with that of Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn). And the district held by newly elected Michael Venditto (R-North Massapequa) absorbed the part of a neighboring district that’s home to Legis. Joseph Belesi (R-Farmingdale), who Newsday reports may be retiring.

Democrats drew the current map when they had the majority in the legislature a decade ago but their proposal to keep the same districts intact was rejected. In 2011, the New York State Court of Appeals threw out an earlier version of the redrawn lines that the Nassau GOP legislative majority rushed through before that year’s elections with little public input.

“Packing and cracking have long been used to gerrymander districts,” said Nancy Rosenthal, co-president of the League of Womens Voters of Nassau County, referring to the practice of redrawing political maps to pack districts with voters registered to the majority party and crack apart areas where members of the opposition party live. “It is demoralizing to see it happening to this extent in Nassau.”

Analysts predict the redrawn map could help Republicans add two seats to their majority, or potentially three seats that could give the GOP a supermajority, according to Brian Paul, research and policy coordinator at Common Cause New York, a nonprofit organization that proposed an alternate map with a coalition of other nonpartisan advocacy groups.

That’s despite the fact that Democrats have a nearly 36,000-enrollment advantage over Republicans—368,049 Dems vs. 332,197 GOP out of 960,331 registered voters in Nassau, according to the latest New York State Board of Elections data. There’s also 212,932 unaffiliated voters, 33,408 Independence Party registrants, 10,249 registered Conservatives, 2,132 Working Family Party members, 1,159 members of the Green Party and 175 listed as “other,” the data shows.

“The only real benefit of moving 360,000-plus people is to shift things around so there is …  incumbent safety or partisan politics advantage,” said Frederick Brewington, a Hempstead-based civil rights attorney who plans to sue the county over the map, if it’s approved. “At some point the question will be asked of you—explain yourself. And in this situation, the concept of this just being a policy decision is not going to cut it.”

Critics also decried the legislative majority for planning to pass a map certain to rack up legal fees the financially strapped county can’t afford over alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act.

Brewington joined others who personally appealed to the legislators, especially Legis. Denise Ford of Long Beach, a registered Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans.

In addition to members of various civic organizations, the dozens of speakers who voiced opposition to the new map before the vote included elected officials from the villages of East Hills and Freeport as well as the Uniondale and Great Neck school districts.

Francis Moroney, chairman of Nassau Temporary Districting Commission, said the panel hired Albany-based Skyline Demographic Consultants to draw the first draft of the map before it was tweaked to address concerns the public raised at a series of hearings.

“Every decision you make flows through and affects someplace else,” said Moroney, likening the process of trying to keep communities with similar interests together to an overflowing bowl of Jell-O. “It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And it’s certainly not a perfect process.”

Adam Haber, a Roslyn school board member challenging former County Executive Tom Suozzi for the Democratic Party line to run against Mangano in November, doubted the fairness of the redistricting process.

“It’s obvious that the will of the people is against this process and the map,” said Haber, an East Hills resident. “What’s the point of … this hearing if the elected officials don’t listen?”

Denenberg made one last stand before the meeting was adjourned for the fight to continue next month, when another lengthy debate is sure to ensure.

“The only reason for that line is to come after me,” he told Morony, pointing to the sliver of the proposed District 14 that juts into southern Merrick, separating his neighborhood from the rest of the hamlet in proposed District 13. “That line that you drew in Merrick … strangely is two houses from my house.”

Nassau County Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove), left, ex-lawmaker Dave Mejias, center, and others announce their opposition to building a casino on Long Island on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.

About a dozen members of a new anti-gambling group declared their opposition Thursday to any proposals to build a casino in Nassau County, citing quality of life concerns and worries that a deal to bring Atlantic City-style gaming to Long Island could be in the works.

The group dubbed themselves Nassau Residents Against Gambling Enterprise Development, or N-RAGED for short, during their debut press conference on the steps of the Supreme Court building in Mineola. Members of various neighborhood civic organizations as well as current and former local Democratic lawmakers round out its ranks.

“We are afraid that our suburban quality of life will be torn apart by some backroom deal in Albany,” said Dave Mejias, an attorney, a former Nassau legislator and the chairman of N-RAGED. “We want to make sure that Long Island is not going to be sold out to those special interests.”

He was referring to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to legalize casino gambling in New York State, a plan that requires a second consecutive vote of approval in the State Legislature before voters ultimately decide its fate in a referendum. The Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton has been scouting for a location to build a gaming facility since winning federal recognition in 2010.

Despite the timing of the rally about an hour after fellow Democratic former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi held a press conference announcing his intentions to reclaim his old position, Mejias maintained that the group was “a-political.” Nevertheless, participants praised Suozzi’s agenda and criticized the Republican who unseated him, Ed Mangano, for proposing a casino at Nassau Coliseum. Also speaking at the anti-casino rally was Nassau Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, another Democrat from Suozzi’s hometown of Glen Cove.

“It’s a question of whether or not we really want to push gambling,” said DeRiggi-Whitton, adding that she prefers alternative proposals to build sports or research centers that have been floated for Uniondale and Elmont. She and others also expressed concerns that bringing casino gambling to LI would further strain social services because there might be an increase of gambling addicts losing their homes after betting on cards and other games of chance and tearing their families apart.

Cuomo had said during his State of the State address last month that he thinks whatever casinos New York builds should be located upstate, drawing tourists from LI and New York City. When reminded of the governor’s idea, Mejias said it’s still possible LI could be dealt a gaming facility while negotiations continue.

Shinnecock Trustee Chairman Randy King told the Press in a statement that if and when the tribe settles on a potential location to open a casino, they are required by federal law to ask the community for input.

“There has not been any recent activity regarding Shinnecock gaming in Nassau County,” the statement read in part.

Aside from the aging coliseum in Uniondale, there have also been proposals in recent years to build a casino at the Belmont Racetrack in Elmont, where the latest development pitch is for a soccer stadium for the New York Cosmos.

A spokesman for State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), the co-leader of the chamber who has been instrumental in Belmont redevelopment talks, did not return a call for comment. Neither did a spokeswoman for Mangano.

“We spend a lot of money sending our kids away to college,” said Mejias. ”They’re not going to be able to live here if they come back to be cocktail waitresses and blackjack dealers.”

Tom Suozzi declares his intention to run for Nassau County Executive.

Three years after Tom Suozzi narrowly lost Nassau’s top-elected position, the former county executive is aiming to get his old job back.

Suozzi, a Democrat, made the announcement Wednesday on his campaign’s official website in a letter addressed to Nassau County residents, declaring his intention to challenge Republican Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano to “restore fiscal stability to our county government and to stop the irresponsible borrowing and skyrocketing debt that shifts the responsibility to our children and grandchildren.”

The former four-term Glen Cove mayor and two-term county executive’s campaign intentions have been one of the worst-kept secrets in Nassau political circles for months. Suozzi has made no secret of his love of politics or intentions for higher office, stating during a debate against former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer during his failed bid in the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary that he’d like to be president one day.

Mangano, a veteran county legislator from Bethpage, defeated Suozzi in December 2009 by less than 400 votes following a razor-thin recount that ended in New York State Supreme Court. The following month, Suozzi was hired by one of his largest campaign contributors, Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems Corp., as a consultant to its Local Media Group, which includes holdings Newsday, am New York and News 12. In April 2010 he was hired as a senior advisor to Manhattan-based global advisory investment bank Lazard Ltd. Most recently, Suozzi was of counsel to Harris Beach, a law firm with 13 locations throughout New York State, including Albany and Uniondale.

“Nassau County was once the ideal suburb and we can be again,” Suozzi declares in the letter, dubbing himself “a problem solver” who loved his job as county executive.

During his time away from public office, Suozzi writes, he’s seen “the county mismanaged from one man-made crisis after another” and notes its financial takeover by state watchdog Nassau Interim Finance Authority.

Former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, conceded a razor-thin defeat to Republican Ed Mangano for the county’s top-elected position in December 2009, losing by less than 400 votes. (Christopher Twarowski/Long Island Press)

He also reflects on the continued departure of recent college grads who can’t afford a future in Nassau because “this suburb of opportunity for my parents, my grandparents, and my generation now has little to offer them.”

“I’m running to demonstrate that we’re all in this together and to stop shifting the burden to our school property taxpayers,” Suozzi continues. “I’m running to stop the deficit spending and the phony budgets.”

A Mangano spokesperson wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Nassau County Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs will be holding a press conference to discuss Suozzi’s candidacy Wednesday afternoon. Although there is already one announced Democratic candidate for the position, Rosyln School Board member/businessman Adam Haber, and another currently exploring a possible run, North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman, political insiders tell the Press Suozzi is the party favorite.

“Jay [Jacobs] is in Tom’s corner, that is well-known in party circles,” says a Democratic Party source.

“I believe that everything I have done in my life has prepared me for this moment,” continues Suozzi’s letter. “My training as a certified public accountant and attorney, my years as a mayor and county executive, and my recent private-sector experiences have prepared me for this job.”