Ocean Grove, God's square mile (actually closer to square kilometer)

Net Spinster

In regards to Christian privilege, I see Ocean Grove, New Jersey, is in the news again. Ocean Grove is wholly owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting which is a group of Methodists (originally all ministers) who bought the land back in the 1869 and developed it as a place Methodists could gather in the summer and enjoy the ocean coolness and preaching. Land was long term leased to people and people built houses and businesses on it and then proceeded to sell. Over years many of the people living there were not Methodists (or even Christian). It now has about 3,000 residents. The Camp Meeting kept strict control over the boardwalk and certain amenities. I first learned about it in the 1970s when I lived not too far from it. Ocean Grove was well known for its strict blue laws including no driving on the community roads on Sunday (enforced by barriers). This was finally dropped around 1980 (lawsuit) and Ocean Grove became a part of Neptune township. However the Camp Meeting still controlled the boardwalk.
Now one of their rules is that the beach isn't open on Sunday mornings (they don't provide lifeguards in the summer at that time and entrances have chains). However the beach below the high water mark plus a little bit more is considered an area the public has a right to access under New Jersey law and yet on this beach no access from the boardwalk on Sunday mornings (they may also enforce it against people who walk in from adjacent beaches). Currently letters are being exchanged and protests made. https://www.nj.com/news/2023/09/jersey-shore-town-battling-state-over-blocking-access-to-beach-on-sundays.html
https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2023/09/sunday-morning-beach-closures-under-fire-in-gods-square-mile-resort-town.html

stetson

What legal right does the Camp Meeting have to decide whether publically-owned beaches have lifeguards on Sundays? IOW what's stopping the township from saying "We're taking over operation of this beach and putting lifeguards in"?

Net Spinster

I suspect the legal right they are using is possession is nine tenths of the law. The Camp Meeting is paying the lifeguards from the fees it collects from the beach passes. It also owns all of Ocean Grove though leases much but retains control over the access points to the beach (e.g., the boardwalk). Until 1980 it ruled Ocean Grove.

Note New Jersey has a distinct system when it comes to the Jersey shore (there is actually a Wikipedia article on the Jersey shore). Accessing a beach was/is often difficult between private beach clubs (usually white-only at least when I lived there), many town beaches now require people to buy beach tags (a policy that started about the time towns were no longer allowed to segregate the beaches) and limit the numbers per day to go onto the beach (at least when lifeguards were present) not to mention buying parking so you could park near the beach (and limited parking though local residents being local could just walk to the beach), a few state beaches and eventually a National Recreation area on the site of an old military base (old as in it dated back to the American Revolution).
A lot dates back to the mid to late 1800s when New Yorkers and others who could afford it would have a summer cottage/house on the Jersey shore. Men would send their families there for the summer (remember no air conditioning in those days) and join them on the weekends (assuming they still had to work in NYC). In the winter most of the people vanished back to wherever they came from (sometimes quite far, it wasn't unusual to see Quebec license plates in the summer in NJ).
My parents almost always took us to the state beaches.

So Ocean Grove isn't too unusual in limiting access except everywhere else on the Jersey shore has the beach usable on Sunday mornings; also as far as I can see there is no discount on the Sunday beach tags even though it is only a half (or two-thirds day). A reason they might be stopping access is to ensure parking for people attending the service at the Great Auditorium (and the hope that locals denied access to the beach might attend church instead).

Baptist Trainfan

I do remember, many years ago, holidaying in the south of France and finding that virtually all the beaches were privately owned -often by hotels - and charged for use. There were a few public beaches and I have no idea if the "private" land reached down to the low tide mark or only the high tide one.

The UK situation seems very unclear: https://tinyurl.com/mr3xe64e

Net Spinster

I suspect the legal right they are using is possession is nine tenths of the law. The Camp Meeting is paying the lifeguards from the fees it collects from the beach passes. It also owns all of Ocean Grove though leases much but retains control over the access points to the beach (e.g., the boardwalk). Until 1980 it ruled Ocean Grove.

Note New Jersey has a distinct system when it comes to the Jersey shore (there is actually a Wikipedia article on the Jersey shore). Accessing a beach was/is often difficult between private beach clubs (usually white-only at least when I lived there), many town beaches now require people to buy beach tags (a policy that started about the time towns were no longer allowed to segregate the beaches) and limit the numbers per day to go onto the beach (at least when lifeguards were present) not to mention buying parking so you could park near the beach (and limited parking though local residents being local could just walk to the beach), a few state beaches and eventually a National Recreation area on the site of an old military base (old as in it dated back to the American Revolution).
A lot dates back to the mid to late 1800s when New Yorkers and others who could afford it would have a summer cottage/house on the Jersey shore. Men would send their families there for the summer (remember no air conditioning in those days) and join them on the weekends (assuming they still had to work in NYC). In the winter most of the people vanished back to wherever they came from (sometimes quite far, it wasn't unusual to see Quebec license plates in the summer in NJ).
My parents almost always took us to the state beaches.

So Ocean Grove isn't too unusual in limiting access except everywhere else on the Jersey shore has the beach usable on Sunday mornings; also as far as I can see there is no discount on the Sunday beach tags even though it is only a half (or two-thirds day). A reason they might be stopping access is to ensure parking for people attending the service at the Great Auditorium (and the hope that locals denied access to the beach might attend church instead).

Gramps49

Mrs. Gramps grandparents had a beach house near Ocean Grove. It was sold before I married into the family.

Hedgehog

The issue of beach ownership in the US has always been convoluted and, as this article explains it is getting more complicated because of climate change and changing tide lines.

The basic concept is that, in most places, the space between high and low tide is traditionally public land. That permits "lateral access" to the shore: as long as one can walk in the strip between high and low tide, the property owner of the beach cannot stop it...but one does not have the right of access to the "dry" beach that is privately owned.

I suspect in Ocean Grove, the lifeguard question is a red herring. The private owner of the beach can keep people off the property if the owner wishes...except for the lateral strip between high and low tide, which is public. Whether there is a lifeguard or not is irrelevant.

But, as you can imagine, with rising sea levels, the issue of where high tide is may be changing and the private property owner may put up structures to keep the water back and then where is the property line drawn?

Net Spinster

Actually in New Jersey they also have to provide reasonable access to the lateral strip.
https://www.monmouth.edu/uci/documents/2018/10/beach-access-report.pdf/ (page 21).
Also apparently they cannot charge if people are only walking along the lateral strip (page 19) which cites https://www.nj.gov/dep/cmp/access/njparightslegal.htm II.A.3.a.i though that may not have been well tested legally.

Kyzyl

There's a LOT wrong with my home state of Texas, but they get beaches right... https://www.glo.texas.gov/coast/coastal-management/open-beaches/index.html#:~:text=In Texas, public access to,the Texas Open Beaches Act.