The East Coast, as the name suggests, is filled with beaches. They might not be the world’s best, but there are sand beaches from Maine to Florida. Unfortunately, many of them are not for all. They are private. Especially in Connecticut, it can be tough to find a beach that the general public is allowed to visit. According to this New York Times article from the 1970s, only six miles of Connecticut shorelines are open to the public. The rest is private to some degree. Some of these beaches are owned by individuals - the lots the houses sit on include the beach itself. Other beaches are owned by hotels or resorts. Then there are the “community beaches”. These are ostensibly public beaches, except you have to live in the immediate neighborhood to use them.
Perhaps the most frustrating are the city beaches that are technically open to everyone, but in reality, are restricted. For decades towns in the Nutmeg State would operate beaches that were only open to town residents. Then, in 2001, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that any beach owned by a municipality can’t restrict use to just their residents. There are, however, ways around this. Some towns require permits for anyone to use their beach. Residents pay a small fee, while non-residents have to pay a large fee. The office that grants permits will be closed on the weekends, so a non-resident needs to visit a town in advance if they want to use the beach on a Saturday. So the beach is open to everyone, but the message is clear: outsiders stay away.
Then there are the more benign but no less effective parking measures. Even if beaches can’t be restricted to residents, parking lots can be. Towns along the Connecticut shoreline have made it difficult to access their public beaches by limited car access. They’ve come up with several clever methods to keep undesirables out. The first is by having parking lots that are for residents only. This is what my town does. There is a parking lot open to the general public, but it only has about 10 spots and is usually filled. This summer, that parking lot is also conveniently closed. Now, you might be thinking that non-residents can just park on the street. Also no. Regardless of how wide the streets are, parking will be nonexistent near the shore. There will be no street parking allowed for blocks.
There’s no step some municipalities won’t take to prevent non-locals from using “their” beaches. Take the area around Soundview Beach in Old Lyme. It’s one of the only beaches in the state with bars that face the water. Because of this, it’s very popular. Now, in many parts of the country, a town would love to have a business that for a few months every year generates tourism and increases tax revenue. Being that this is Connecticut, however, anyone who doesn’t live within walking distance is viewed with suspicion. A plethora of rules and regulations have made it difficult for anyone to visit any of the establishments that serve alcohol. First, parking along the street was banned on all residential streets. Not just near the beach, but for miles. Then, in a truly scorched-earth tactic, a near ban was instituted on residents charging money to have cars park on their property. So even though some locals wanted non-residents to use the area, they weren’t allowed to. The city does sell permits for those who want to operate paid parking on their property, but these are extremely limited. Not content with that, the city of Old Lyme banned large coolers on the beach, so even if you get one of the few parking spots, don’t even think about bringing a cooler full of sandwiches and drinks. Even with all those hurdles, would-be beachgoers soon found a state picnic area that was 1.5 miles away. They would park and lug all their beach gear the distance. The city responded by asking the state to ban this behavior. Thankfully, the state responded that the picnic area is for anyone, and there are no rules against parking there and walking elsewhere. One community meeting illustrates how convinced some residents of Old Lyme are that they deserve a locals-only beach. Some complaints include that "They come in groups of 15 to 20," and "They come by Uber”. The horror. God forbid people want to enjoy some of the limited coastline available.
And that’s the problem. Because every municipality has taken steps to limit access, it’s in each town’s best interest to maintain the status quo. I hate that my town has a massive, residents-only parking area that is half-filled and a beautiful beach that is never crowded. But if someone proposed making the parking lot open to everyone, I don’t know if I would want that to happen. If my town is the only town in the state with an easily accessible beach, it will be overrun. Crowds would descend, and the beach I use most frequently would go from an oasis to a zoo.
We are trapped in a negative equilibrium. I would be in favor of every town granting access to anyone who wants to use a beach in Connecticut, but I don’t want my town to be the only one that has to deal with massive crowds, while the rest get to enjoy their pseudo-private beaches. If every town were to allow the public to access their beaches, then crowds wouldn’t be much of a problem. It’s not like out-of-staters are going to flock to the pebbly beaches of Connecticut. There would be more people, but the crowds would spread out. If any one town grants access, however, they would be overrun. Thus, every town has the incentive to restrict its beaches.
The solution? I don’t say this often, but the state government. Because every local government has the incentive to restrict access, while the state on the whole would benefit from having open access, the state needs to step in. A state law that banned differential pricing for non-residents, banned residents-only parking lots, and mandated a reasonable amount of street parking would be better for everyone except for the millionaires who live along the water. Of course, those people have considerable resources, so I don’t expect that law to come anytime soon. Instead, I’ll continue to use my local beach, and lament that I can’t go elsewhere.