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HOME  - Various Beach Tags
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Written by Scott Silver
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Tuesday, 25 July 2006 |
Quoted from the appended column which appear last Friday in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
[ It's not the money; it's the principle. What next? Pay-as-you-go public drinking fountains? A fee to breathe fresh air? ]
This first column generated so much feedback that a follow-up was published on Monday. Here's a quote from that one:
[After I teed off Friday on what I consider to be a most un-American and undemocratic tradition - charging people to walk on a public strand of sand - I heard from many just as annoyed as me. They basically had this to say: Just because we pay it doesn't mean we like it.]
If so many people think beach-tags are un-American and undemocratic and find themselves not only incensed but find that they stop going to beaches were fees are charged, then isn't it reasonable to assume something similar is happening on public lands where new and higher fees are being charged for simply walking in the woods, or sitting by a stream or watching the sun set?
If we accept the principle that these fees are OK, then isn't it reasonable to assume that we will also, as soon as someone can figure out how, be required to pay to breathe fresh air?
Scott
"Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? ... there would be an American Air-Bottling Association. ... they would let millions die for want of breath, if they could not pay for the air."
- Robert G. Ingersoll, 1896
"The free market means that those without money to buy what they need do not have the right to live."
- John McMurtry
-- begin quoted --
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/john_grogan/15086916.htm
Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006
N.J. beaches not land of the free
By John Grogan - Inquirer Columnist
I was sitting on the beach in Avalon last week, white sand between my
toes, salt breeze in my face, a giant yellow sun perched perfectly in
an endless blue sky.
The day was about as perfect as beach days get. So why was I feeling so
grumpy? I should have been daydreaming about fanciful pursuits or
simply staring happily out to sea.
Instead I fretted about American core values and what strikes me as a
gross violation, at least in spirit, of one of the most basic of them
all.
No, I wasn't thinking about unconstitutional detentions at Guantanamo
or secret wiretaps of Americans or tortured rationalizations for
torture.
I was thinking about something much closer to home - or, as the case was on this day, much closer to my oceanfront hotel.
Yes, I was stewing about that oh-so-un-American of government
impositions: the dreaded, evil beach tag. My wife, our daughter and I
had arrived at our hotel before check-in and had decided to kill time
until our room was ready with a walk in the surf.
But when we tried to walk over the dune onto the beach, we were greeted
with a reminder that this little corner of the land of the free
requires a paid pass for entry.
No problem. The hotel provided two tags with our room, but still it
reminded me of the one thing I hate about the Jersey Shore - the
brazenly undemocratic, exclusionary practice of charging Americans for
access to a public American treasure.
A sovereign right?
Does anyone own the sand? Does anyone own the surf? Does anyone own the
sunshine or the shells or the lonely cries of a soaring gull? So why do
we line up like sheep to pay for the privilege of enjoying what no man,
no government, can possess?
Maybe my dark mood was the result of growing up on the Great Lakes
surrounded by hundreds of miles of pristine, white-sand beaches that
anyone could enjoy anytime. No fees, no badges, no police-state grumpy
guards manning the dune line. (Is it me or are all beach-tag checkers
suffering some degree of Napoleon complex, little people
overcompensating in a big way?)
Maybe it's because I spent a dozen years living near the ocean in South
Florida, where beach communities without exception manage to maintain
clean, safe, fun beaches without onerous access fees.
Maybe it's because I had just returned from Santa Barbara, Calif., where stunningly beautiful beaches were open and free to all.
My friends who grew up going to the Jersey Shore each summer shrug
their shoulders and look at me like I need a Valium refill. "It's five
bucks a day," they say. "What's the big deal?"
No big deal for them or for me or for most of us. But as I sit on the
beach, my tag pinned securely to my swim trunks so I don't raise the
ire of the Little Corporals prowling about, I think about the ranks of
low-paid workers, many immigrants, who keep beach towns like Avalon
humming.
A shared treasure
I think about the maids who change the beds and the gardeners who trim
the hedges and the busboys who clear the dirty plates. What about them?
They work all week so the rest of us can play. On their day off,
shouldn't they have the right to bring their children to the beach,
too, without having to shell out the better part of an hour's pay per
family member?
It's not the money; it's the principle. What next? Pay-as-you-go public drinking fountains? A fee to breathe fresh air?
I know what the beach towns say: that keeping clean, safe, lifeguarded
beaches costs money, and the burden should be placed on those who use
them.
But what would Walt Whitman say? What would Thoreau say? And Jefferson
and Adams and Franklin? What would Woody Guthrie, the balladeer who
wrote "This Land is Your Land," say? Would he have sung, "This land was
made for you and me (and anyone else who can afford the fees)"?
Yeah, I'm a little grumpy. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's because I wasn't ready to say good-bye to the Shore.
Maybe it's the fact that a beach tag should fit any self-respecting
American about as comfortably as a tight swimming suit filled with wet
sand.
--
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/john_grogan/15107327.htm
Posted on Mon, Jul. 24, 2006
Taking sides on beach tags
By John Grogan - Inquirer Columnist
At least I'm not the only one grumpy about those dastardly beach tags.
After I teed off Friday on what I consider to be a most un-American and
undemocratic tradition - charging people to walk on a public strand of
sand - I heard from many just as annoyed as me. They basically had this
to say: Just because we pay it doesn't mean we like it.
With a few exceptions, such as Wildwood and Atlantic City, beach fees are simply part of the Jersey Shore experience.
As you might expect, my mail largely has been split into two equally
cantankerous camps, separated by zip code. Those who pay taxes in beach
communities tended to feel that outsiders should chip in to use the
beach. Visitors tended to feel they already pump enough money into the
local economy - by patronizing hotels, restaurants, arcades and stores.
Take it away, sand-and-surf lovers:
"I become incensed when I have to pay to use the beach," wrote Kathleen
A. Diem of Warminster, who has spent decades doing just that. "To add
insult to injury, after paying to sit on the beach at Ocean City or Sea
Isle City, you can only go into the ocean at certain places... [and]
are forced to swim in a corral with a million of your closest friends
and their boogie boards."
Who'll lead the charge?
Wrote Sue Salmon of Ambler, whose family has owned a home in Ocean City for nearly four decades:
"When I sit on the beach and look up at the homes and think of the
taxes paid just in one city block, I am floored. I simply do not
understand why a city that collects so much in taxes still needs to
charge everyone to sit on its beaches."
Added Anthony Preziosi of Mantua, Gloucester County, "What will they tax us on next?"
Dave Meade of Media suggested I lead the civil-disobedience charge:
"Why don't you go on the beach and refuse to pay? Now that could lead
to an interesting article." I'm behind you every step of the way, Dave.
Bob Horbach of North Wales was one of many I heard from who votes with
his flip-flops. "Never in my lifetime have I paid for a beach tag," he
wrote. "I avoid those towns like a swarm of locusts. I've found that
other beach towns love my money just as much as those with the tag
fees. Because of the New Jersey Shore's insistence that they 'own' the
ocean and the beaches, my local beach time is mostly spent in Ocean
City, Md."
"Much better beaches, and they're free," agreed Michael Gottsch of Havertown, who similarly favors Maryland.
Others suspected the real purpose of tag fees is to discourage
low-income hordes in front of multimillion-dollar homes. As David J.
Salerno of Annapolis, Md., put it: "They want to create their own
little oasis on public land so they don't have to look at others
enjoying themselves."
Share the burden
Not everyone loathes the lowly tag.
Cheryl Lyman, who owns rental property in Ocean City, defended the
beach tag as a fair way of "sharing the burden" of upkeep. Besides, she
said, the fee could be less if renters were not "piglets who leave
their trash" on the beach.
"This is one of the 'fair' taxes, a true user fee," wrote Brian Young
Jr., who owns a home in Avalon. "Believe me when I say the property
owners pay more than enough. How about I buy your beach tags and you
pay my property taxes?"
How about you give me your beach house, Brian, and I'll give you my metered parking space?
Erin McNamara Horvat, an urban-studies professor at Temple University,
was on my side, writing: "The beach is a public good and ought to be
treated as such. One of the fundamental ideas undergirding our society
is that we pool resources, in the form of taxes, to support things that
we all need and use."
Finally, Chris Lloyd of Willow Grove, calling me The Inquirer's "whiner
emeritus" (at your service!), wrote: "If you do not like the policy, go
somewhere else. It is a pretty easy fix and will save us all the
complaining."
Good advice, Chris. In a few weeks, I'll be sipping a cold beer on the
white-sand beaches of Lake Michigan. No fees, no rules, no
chest-puffing enforcers.
Oh, and no jellyfish.
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