I think that NJ is the only state that has beach badges. At least, I've never encountered badges anywhere else. The law in NJ says, all tidal lands and water from the high water mark seaward is public. Access may occasionally be restricted based on private ownership, shore armoring (bulkheads, groins, seawalls) and public safety issues.
http://tinyurl.com/66l6y7 That is a link to the public access study I found and quoted above. www.crabnj.com There's an advocacy group called Citizens Right to Access Beaches (CRAB) that was founded when Point Beach's only municipally owned public access beach was developed into a supposedly upscale private community. I say supposedly because it is so damn ugly. Anyway, the upscale community claimed sole access to the beach and didn't want the great unwashed coming through to use "their" beach. CRAB doesn't seem to want free beaches. They don't want to lose the ability to get to the beach at all. FYI - There's also history here. Until about 25 years ago, the Ocean county shore towns of Bay Head and Mantoloking did not allow non-residents on their beach. I grew up within walking distance of the Bay Head beach, but I lived in Point Boro. We weren't allowed on their beach during guarded hours. A NJ supreme court decision changed that (Matthews v. Bay Head Improvement Association). Anyone can buy a badge in beautiful Bay Head now. It's a bitch to park and you can't get a soda or use a bathroom, but you can go. Maybe you can make friends with someone who owns a house and they'll let you use their bathroom. So I looked up Matthews v. Bay Head Improvement Association and here is the decision. Apparently Sophie can sit on the dry sand. In New Jersey the courts have recognized the public trust doctrine to give all residents access to the state's public trust land. Recently, the courts expanded the public's right to include use of the dry-sand beach (Matthew v. Bay Head Improvement Association, 471 A. 2d 355 (1984)). In that case, town residents sued the beach association and beachfront property owners asserting that defendants denied public its right of access to public trust lands on the beaches in the municipality and its right to use private property fronting on the ocean incidental to public's right under the public trust doctrine. The court held the public must be given both access to and use of privately owned dry sand areas as reasonably necessary under the public trust doctrine. The court noted that it did not need to rely on legal theories used in other jurisdictions such as prescriptive easements or customary law. Rather it decided to simply modify the public trust doctrine to reflect the reality of the times that people need to use the dry-sand beach to enjoy the area below the high water mark. The court stated that "[a] rchaic judicial responses are not an answer to a modern social problem. Rather, we perceive the public trust doctrine not to be "fixed or static," but one to "be molded and extended to meet changing conditions and needs of the public it was created to benefit. " ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:asburypark-dig...@yahoogroups.com mailto:asburypark-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: asburypark-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
