"Beach access comes to a head in N.J.; Towns use tactics to keep public off" by Wayne Parry, Associated Press | August 24, 2008
BAY HEAD, N.J. - The notion that beaches belong to oceanfront homeowners persists.
Last month, Jeff Pillets and Elise Young, two reporters for The Record of Bergen County, were sitting on a beach in Bay Head, where they had been vacationing for 10 years. But this time they had plopped themselves down behind the home of Patrick Denihan, a millionaire New York hotelier.
Denihan approached them, said he owns the entire beach down to the water, and ordered them to leave. Pillets and Young refused. They had the right to be where they were, they told Denihan. Police were called, and they sided with the couple.
:-)
They treat it like the private sandbox of a privileged few. Tactics include charging as much as $12 to use the beach for a single day and severely restricting parking near the beach (if there's parking at all). Then there's the lack of restrooms and showers, a ban on food and drinks on the beach, physical barriers preventing beachgoers from even reaching the sand.
Add the "not-on-my-sand" mentality of some oceanfront homeowners, and large swaths of the New Jersey shore seem to scream: STAY OUT!
Despite a series of court decisions that upheld the public's right to swim in the ocean and sit on the shoreline for a reasonable fee, many shore towns and privately owned beaches are finding other ways to keep nonresidents off their sand.
"These towns have traditionally used a whole series of legal yet subtle tactics to keep their beaches unfriendly and inaccessible," said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a coastal advocacy group. "If you're a mother of three, you're not going to go to a part of the shore that doesn't have bathrooms and nearby parking. It's de facto privatization of the shore."
New rules adopted by New Jersey in December require public access points every quarter-mile and bathrooms every half-mile on any beach that has gotten public money. Lisa Jackson, the state's environmental protection commissioner, said the rules are intended to ensure that the public can "not only just get to the shore, but park there and enjoy the experience."
The push for greater beach access in New Jersey began as the state helped pay for numerous beach replenishment projects. In 2006, the state sued Sea Bright and nine private beach clubs there seeking public access to beaches that were replenished with taxpayer funds. The case is in mediation. Under the Public Trust Doctrine, a legal concept adopted by New Jersey that dates to the Roman Emperor Justinian, the public has the right to swim in coastal waterways and walk along the shores.
Can I leave a pile in the sand as a gift for my richer host?
New Jersey gave its shore towns the ability to charge for beach access in 1955. The fees were supposed to pay for maintaining and operating beaches, but some towns have used the charges to keep out-of-towners away. Mantoloking, just to the south of Bay Head, is the wealthiest municipality in New Jersey, a town of 423 residents where a quarter list their occupation as "corporate executive" and where there are more than 50 homes worth $2 million or more.
They are what used to be called SNOBS!!!
Most of its beaches are privately owned and operated and will sell daily badges to the public for $8. Mantoloking's one municipal beach - which doesn't have lifeguards - charges $12 for a season badge. That's a great deal for day-trippers. But Mantoloking does not sell any daily badges, meaning it will cost $12 to use the beach for a single day or the entire summer.
There's also frustration that municipalities don't cross-honor the badges they sell for beach access. For example, the Avon beach is a short walk from the Belmar beach, but you'll pay twice to get on the sand to visit both.
At this point I lost interest in the piece and really didn't give a shit anymore.
I never go to the beach; who would want to swim around in sewage?
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