Letter: Non-residents breaking Barrington Beach rules

To the editor:

If you use Barrington Town Beach as often as I do, you might notice that a decision was made by our Town Council to open our beach to non-residents for a daily fee of $10 per carload. The decision was recommended last year by the Parks And Recreation Commission. It is pretty clear why Parks and Rec would cast an almost unanimous vote: Collecting money from non-residents goes into their budget line. And, as one who has worked with them through issues in the past, I can tell you that their budget is tight and they are room full of good citizens volunteering to do good things for our children. 

Also, opening the beach to non-residents opens the door to receive federal grants for maintenance and upkeep. 

Who could argue with that? It is a sound, fiscal decision. 

Conversely, opening the beach to non-residents has caused a few issues. For instance, if you get there after a certain time on a busy day you may be required to park on the grass infield instead of enjoying a spot along the fence. So that means the luxury of walking a few feet to your favorite spot is pretty much gone after noon or so. 

The bigger issue is enforcement of the rules as set by our current Management Plan. Article 5.29 prohibits Smoking and Article 5.24 prohibits fires/grilles. 

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this letter;

A week ago I got a call from my wife who was on the beach enjoying a rare day off from work to tell me that she was upset by the behavior of some out of town guests. 

I went down there and discovered that a group of ten or so young adults were smoking, grilling, playing loud music and dropping “F Bombs” repeatedly within feet of her. I surmised that they were out of town guests because none of them had beach stickers on the cars attached to the tailgates they were grilling on.

As mentioned above, we have rules about smoking and grilling. However we don’t have rules prohibiting loud , offensive music and the brash cussing in the presence of my wife and other families trying to enjoy their day. I am guessing that, in the past, those rules were not necessary.

So what to do? We cannot expect that our lifeguards could handle such things. They are typically high school aged students working through the summer months. And I would guess that we shouldn't be bothering our police because someone is smoking, or even grilling a hot dog.

I suggest the following: Our Management Plan should be reinforced to ensure that everyone can go to our beaches and enjoy the safe, clean, healthy environment that we have enjoyed for so many years here in our beautiful town. And those who are responsible for managing our beach should have a clear understanding of the rules and regulations and an system in place for enforcing them.

Finally, and I know I am being selfish here; why not direct out of town guests to park on the grass and leave the spaces along the fence for old codgers like me with bad knees and a resident sticker.

Joe Sbardella

Barrington