He became obsessed with driving around, searching for any local farm or fisherman on a dock and bugging them to see if they, too, wanted to help him with his vision.

His menu now, which reflects a reinvention, leans into a new way to present New England seafood for an old suburban fishing town, serving snacks like a smoked Rhode Island bluefish paté, raw New Bedford sea scallops with sesame and crispy shallots, chowder with quahogs and fermented hot sauce. He also makes his own pasta with milled local grains.

Today, Dion has largely taken over the business, although his mom can still be found in the kitchen.

“If you’ve had a piece of swordfish at S.S. Dion in the past 43 years, she’s grilled it. And she doesn’t want that to end,” said Dion. “She loves it, and wants to work forever.”

His father visits every day for an hour to keep track of “all of my numbers.”

“I do it all on a computer, and he’s got every, every penny of it on paper,” said Dion.

The reimagined version has had a lot of success, growing 300 percent over the last five years.

What to eat: Try any of the snacks to start with, but be sure to get at least one of their house-made pastas for the table to share: a black spaghetti puttanesca with fried squid, anchovies, Calabrian chilies, and braised tomato. A bowl of gemelli with house-made fish sausage, rapini, pangrattato, and aglio e olio. A roasted mushroom campanelle with sautéed leeks, Brussel sprouts, tarragon, and tender pea tendrils. A perfect bolognese. There are also comforting staples from S.S. Dion’s past life: “The chicken parmesan will be on that menu for my whole life,” said Dion. “But there’s a fermented hot sauce martini on there as well.”

“I want to have that spectrum of people who have always come into S.S. and ordered what they love and remember,” said Dion. “But also there might be something exciting for someone else in their party who is more adventurous.”

You can get three courses for just $40 per person if you order from their prix fixe menu. Your options include local crudos; a funky caesar with smoked Rhode Island bluefish and sourdough croutons, calamari from Point Judith, all sorts of scratch-made pastas, and plenty of desserts.

Dion said his fries take three days to prepare, and he makes every part of their burger from scratch (an “everything” milk bun, house bacon, crispy onions, a 21-day dry-aged burger bun from Blackbird Farm slathered in a special sauce) other than the cheddar cheese it is topped with.

“The world just seems to get more and more artificial, and there’s a really blurry line between what is human and what is manufactured,” he said. “It just feels good to be authentic to my place.”

What to drink: Start off with a bang and get the “Low Tide Hot N’ Dirty,” which uses a nori-infused Lime Rock gin, fermented green chili, yuzu, and topped with a spicy seaweed chip. Or their bacon fat-washed maple old fashioned. The beer list has a ton of local brews from around New England, while the wine list has some interesting choices for the area: a Primitivo from Puglia, an Austrian riesling, and a chenin blanc-viognier from Napa.

Don’t forget dessert: The bananas foster bread pudding is baked in a cast iron pan drizzled with rum caramel and topped with pecans and vanilla ice cream. The chocolate pot de creme uses miso caramel, beetroot meringue, salted cashew crumble, and fennel. Or you can order a basque cheesecake topped with flaky sea salt and orange zest, or a traditional affogato that’s drowned in a double shot of espresso from Borealis Coffee Company, a small-batch local specialty roaster.

Final say: S.S. Dion is one of those legacy restaurants that found further success after reinventing itself when the second generation took over. Dion has dreams of opening his own restaurant with a different concept and to potentially do it in Providence. He’s looking for locations, but isn’t ready to sign a lease yet.

“I’m really happy with where S.S. is now,” said Dion. “But what chef doesn’t have dreams of opening a dozen more restaurants?

“I’d say that’s what’s next,” he added. “I’d like to start something else soon.”

S.S. Dion, 520 Thames St., Bristol, R.I., 401-253-2884, ssdion.com. Raw bar $3.5-$165; salads $13-$18; snacks $9-$25; scratch pasta $14-$38; entrées $25-market price; Sides and sauces $1-$7.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.

• The Rhode Island Senate unanimously passed legislation to allow victims of clergy sex abuse to sue the institutions that failed to protect them.
• The bill provides a two-year window for victims to revive claims that are currently barred by expired time limits.
• This action follows the release of the attorney general’s report detailing a systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church over decades.

PROVIDENCE – Victims of clergy sex abuse scored a long-sought victory in the Rhode Island Senate on Wednesday, June 3.

Legislation to allow the victims to sue the Catholic Church – and any other institution that failed to protect them from molestation when they were children – won unanimous Senate approval and now goes to the House for final votes.

The fast action from Senate Judiciary Committee approval – to a full Senate vote – within an hour and a half was not unexpected after the announcement on Monday of a compromise backed by the Senate’s top-tier Democrats, including Senate President Valarie Lawson, Majority Leader Frank Ciccone and Senate Judiciary Chairman Matthew LaMountain.

If passed, as now appears likely, the legislation will allow the victims of sexual abuse by clergy to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and any other entity that knew, but failed to stop – or concealed – the abuse they suffered as children at the hands of trusted elders.

The legislation would also provide the long-ago victims – many of them now in their 60s and 70s – with a two-year window to revive claims currently barred by expired time limits.

The compromise – after years of pleas and inaction – follows the long-awaited release on March 4 of Attorney General Peter Neronha’s report detailing the systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church of the sexual abuse of more than 300 Rhode Island children.

His report laid bare, for the first time, the scope of more than a half century of alleged child sexual abuse by Rhode Island Catholic clergy and the breadth and depth of the alleged cover-up, which often included destroying key files or shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they would reoffend.

Sen. Mark McKenney, the lead Senate sponsor, told colleagues that the proposed new law not only states “this conduct unacceptable, but from now on, the institutions that have enabled it will be held accountable as well.”

As to whether the law would survive a legal challenge, McKenney said the Rhode Island Constitution “contains a provision that is somewhat unique in the United States: a victims’ rights clause. That provision has been largely overlooked in the debate that’s gone on about the constitutionality of this and … previous versions of this bill,” but retired U.S. District Judge William Smith drew attention to it when he testified.

He said Article 1, Section 23 “of our constitution provides that crime victims, including child sexual abuse victims, not only may receive compensation from perpetrators, but also, and this is a quote from the constitution, ‘Shall receive such other compensation as the state may provide,’ with that power ‘entirely committed to our authority as the General Assembly.’”

Co-sponsor Dawn Euer applauded “the victims and survivors, both the ones that we know of and the ones that we don’t, as well as the ones that we have lost. The strength and courage that it takes to go through what [these] people have gone through … is incredible.

“And then to be able to come up here and advocate …. for passage of this legislation over years [of] legislative turmoil and back again, it’s really incredible the strength and determination that you all have shown,” she said to the group of survivor-advocates in the Senate gallery.

“We get used to it,” she said of the process by which “the proverbial sausage is made. But for issues like this that have real impacts on people’s lives, it can be an additional trauma,” she said of the year after year of public hearings and testimony, followed by inaction.

On Wednesday, she said, the Senate sent the “strong signal that Rhode Island stands with survivors and victims.”

This story has been updated with new information.

A rising tide of beach garbage plagues local wildlife. Fortunately, there’s something you can do about it.

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The litter accumulates from trash left on the shoreline, refuse that blows in from cars, bins and local roadways, and garbage that travels to the ocean by way of rivers. Waves then break down the plastics into smaller pieces of micro- and nanoplastics.

“Plastic pollution is incredibly dangerous to aquatic species,” she says. Fish and other animals ingest the microplastics and can become entangled in ribbons, nets and fishing lines. Other items that entangle wildlife include six-pack ring holders, hair ties, fishing line, netting or pieces of netting, fishing lures, hooks and plastic bags.

Sea birds are especially vulnerable because they use those bits of fishing line, rope, string and other materials to build their nests. Balloons, in particular, are deadly to seabirds, which often mistake them for jellyfish or other prey.

“Plastics are now in every ecosystem, almost every seabird, and almost every human body,” Mateleska says, with the long-term health impacts unknown.

They also take an extremely long time to break down, which is harmful to the state’s delicate coastal ecosystem.

“[Plastic] material that is in the environment may present itself on a shoreline very far away many years or decades later,” says Dave McLaughlin, sustainability coordinator at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

___________________________

What You Can Do

Beach walkers can help by picking up garbage wherever they go to enjoy the outdoors. But you don’t have to go to the beach to help. Better management of beach trash starts at home, Mataleska says.

“Refuse single-use plastics and look for sustainable alternatives, pick up trash wherever and whenever you see it, and support legislation that stops plastic at the source,” she advises.

Volunteer for coastal cleanups, use reusable materials, carry in and carry out your trash, recycle, and don’t litter. And consider joining a nonprofit group such as those sponsored by Coastodians (coastodians.org) or Save the Bay (savebay.org) that organize beach cleanups. When it comes to beach trash, even small groups can make a big difference.