There’s been a lot of talk about the decision to put a police officer on Island Beach on the weekends following what I’ll call overcrowding-related complaints. The GT editorial even suggested studying the issue before instituting the change. For as long as I can remember, and that’s back to the 60’s, there’ve been police at Greenwich Point, including those special summertime bicycle police. Why wouldn’t we also have police at Island Beach? I should think that the fact that it’s an Island, and depending on where the ferries and police boats are it could take 1/2 hour for police to get there in an emergency, would warrant a police presence at Island Beach more so than at Greenwich Point.
It’s about time we had a full-time police presence on Island Beach. And I certainly support efforts to ensure Island Beach is not home to loud music and beer bottles.
I agree with Mr. Bowman. Who is supposed to handle emergency and legal matters on Island Beach and, for that matter, Great Captain’s Island? Are the “keepers” who live on these islands tasked with these duties?
The Greenwich Time ran an Op-Ed about keeping race out of the discussion. This was nothing more than liberal pandering to keep all of us from focusing on the problem. Their goal is to keep things opaque and gauzey. As citizens, we want to know who and what is the problem. Then, we can solve it.
We also should not have voluntarily opened the islands up to non-residents. Anyone can visit the islands, but they have to get there on their own.
Comment by Smith — July 16th, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
I think the problem with bringing race into the discussion is it makes the town look bad if it acts to remedy the situation. Now that a race issue has been raised, someone will say efforts to keep the offenders out is racially motivated.
And I wouldn’t go assuming that a large number of Spanish-speaking park visitors are all, or even mostly, non-residents. 50% of Byram is Spanish-speaking and they don’t belong to clubs or summer in Nantucket; they are using our beaches.
Whoever is playing music too loud or littering our parks should be thrown out whether they’re from Greenwich, Port Chester or Mars.
I’d certainly like to see residents get preference in obtaining picknic tables, etc. at Island Beach. I see no reason why non-resident passes cannot be limited and why we can’t actually have “guest” passes again, meaning I as a resident get to bring a friend from out of town to the beach.
I really don’t want to be reading about this controversy on Sunday in the New York Times.
Comment by John Bowman — July 16th, 2010 @ 2:32 pm
There should definitely be police on the Island, especially in light of recent antisocial behavior displayed regularly on the Island by some of our non-resident “guests”.
The problem is the Island is overcrowded due to far too many non-residents. Other beaches in the region charge typically between $15 and $30 per person on weekend, we charge $8, so guess where these lovely people choose to visit?
Comment by CJ — July 19th, 2010 @ 8:44 am
Thanks for your post. Two years ago it was only $5/person at Rye’s Oakland Beach. I did a little research and found that, sure enough, they just raised the rates there. See the article below.
http://soundshore.lohudblogs.com/2010/05/03/non-residents-to-pay-higher-fees-at-rye-town-park-oakland-beach/
Haven’t been to Oakland lately, but I can say it used to be a mess, way worse than anything seen at Island Beach, and I blame that on their lax access policies.
So I wonder if we considered the fact that we were drastically lowering our rates at the same time Oakland raised there’s from $10 to $25/person. (parking + per person fee).
I have to say, however, that unless you watched someone or some group use a guest pass or passes at the dock and then followed them onto the Island and observed them personally, you should not be blaming nonresidents for the antisocial behavoir. We can all agree that anyone causing problems should be ejected.
Comment by John Bowman — July 19th, 2010 @ 9:16 am
I tried to visit Island Beach as a non-resident recently. I had to pay a $20 “day parking fee” for the Arch St. lot. I tried to purchase my $8 pass at the ferry booth only to be told that non-residents can’t purchase tickets there. We were told to go to Town Hall, the Bendheim Western Greenwich Civic Center or the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center.
This is so obviously aimed at preventing non-residents from visiting the island. The hostility is clearly there. I am afraid my family and friends will be re-evaluating the amount of money we spend in Greenwich as we are obviously not welcome there.
Comment by Stamford Resident — August 22nd, 2010 @ 10:41 am