THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020 MBRE 11Connecticut and New York residents who
don’t live along the coast are most likely
feeling the heat more than usual this sum-
mer, as one town after another has closed
off its beaches to everyone except locals.
Citing the need to prevent the spread of
Covid-19, officials have instituted varying
degrees of “residents only” policies on
beaches in every coastal Fairfield County
town except Greenwich, with Darien and
Stamford the latest to shut off access. Some
towns farther up the shoreline, including
Milford, Madison and Groton, have enacted
similar measures.
Many Long Island municipalities are also
restricting access to town beaches, includ-
ing Long Beach, Hempstead, Huntington
and Southampton.
By shunning outsiders, towns appear to
be butting up against legal mandates that
require them to maintain public access. But
officials argue that with state beaches oper-
ating at reduced capacity, town beaches are
getting much more traffic than usual, creat-
ing a hazard for residents.
Jennings Beach in Fairfield, Conn., is
open only to residents on weekends, a pol-
icy adopted in mid-July after the first select-
woman, Brenda Kupchick, received a rash
of complaints that there were too many peo-
ple trying to stake out a spot on the sand.
“We had people parking all over the
beach area, parking a mile or two away, or
taking an Uber and walking on,” she said.
“We have multiple ways to get onto our
beaches, right in the middle of residential
areas. People were emailing me like crazy
saying it was unsafe.”
Fairfield has since fenced off various en-
try points to Jennings and other beaches,
posted police officers and raised parking
fines to $200 from $80. Up to 150 nonresi-
dent vehicles are allowed to park in the Jen-
nings lot on weekdays for a $50 fee.
On the first Saturday the policy took ef-
fect, many residents were caught off guard
when a parks and recreation worker stood
on the main pathway to the beach and asked
them to show identification. Most, though,
expressed relief at the new requirement.
“Our virus numbers in Fairfield are low
right now, we’d all like it to stay that way,”
said Sara Tieke, who was biking past the
beach with her husband, Brad. “You have to
draw the line somewhere.”
But civil-liberties advocates say such re-
strictions conflict with a 2001 state Supreme
Court decision that found that the town of
Greenwich’s residents-only policy, which
had been in place for decades, was unconsti-
tutional. Since then, towns have opened
their beaches to nonresidents, though
many still effectively restrict access by lim-
iting the number of available passes or
charging hefty daily parking fees.
David McGuire, executive director of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Connecti-
cut, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in
the 2001 case, said the A.C.L.U. was con-
cerned that the virus was being used as a
justification for exclusionary beach policies
that in decades past were used as a tool for
racial injustice.
“I’m not saying that’s happening now, but
we can’t allow the pandemic to be an excuse
for unfair treatment of people,” Mr. Mc-
Guire said. “Capacity limits are important,
but a resident-only scheme doesn’t address
the issue of social distancing. What they re-
ally ought to do is put a cap on how many
people can be on the beach, and allow peo-
ple in on a first-come-first-served basis.That is a policy grounded in science.”
Further, he said, policies that reserve the
beach for residents on weekends while
opening it up to nonresidents on weekdays
“are clearly designed to give preferential or
exclusive access to residents during certain
periods, which is unfair and unconstitution-
al.”
But municipal officials do not want to
have to turn away their own residents on
busy weekends.
“Our taxpayers pay for lifeguards, De-
partment of Public Works employees for
maintenance of the beaches, law enforce-
ment — it’s a lot of money,” Ms. Kupchick
said. “To say to your residents who pay that,
you can’t go — it doesn’t seem right.”
Mr. McGuire said his office would scruti-
nize all residents-only ordinances and their
enforcement to determine if they comply
with the 2001 Supreme Court decision.
In Nassau County, on Long Island, the
city of Long Beach stopped selling nonresi-
dent daily beach passes on Fridays, Satur-
days and Sundays as of July 23. The beach
was getting too crowded, due in large part to
overflow from Jones Beach and Robert Mo-
ses, which were reaching capacity early in
the day on weekends, said Joe Brand, the
city’s interim parks and recreation commis-
sioner.
“We were overrun with nonresident sales
on the weekends in addition to our resident
clientele,” Mr. Brand said.
Gate attendants and security are now
posted at each beach entrance. If the beach
is too crowded at any one entrance, attend-
ants will close it and urge residents to enterat a different location.
“That’s easier than telling people they
can’t access at all,” Mr. Brand said.
At the county-run Nickerson Beach,
county officials closed parking to nonresi-
dents back in May in response to Mayor Bill
de Blasio’s decision to keep New York City
beaches closed. That policy ended once
New York City opened its beaches in July.
“Because city beaches hadn’t been
opened, we wanted to avoid people coming
from the city and overcrowding,” said Jor-
dan Carmon, a spokesman for the county
executive, Laura Curran. “The entire point
was the health and safety of residents and
ensuring that county residents had access
to the single county beach that they pay to
maintain and operate.”
Restricting public access along that
shoreline could potentially violate federal
policies that require communities that ac-
cept federal funds for beach restoration to
maintain public access. Last year, the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers completed a $130
million storm risk reduction project in Long
Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout.
Stuart Malec, a spokesman for Repre-
sentative Kathleen M. Rice, said the con-
gresswoman’s district office on Long Island
had inquired with the Army Corps about the
restrictions. He said they received this re-
sponse from the Army Corps’ public affairs
office: “Any decisions made by local health
official and authorities to temporarily close
or limit access to beaches due to the Covid
pandemic is not expected to affect any fund-
ing decisions regarding future long-term re-
pair assistance or renourishment actions
for those projects.”
Back in Connecticut, Brenden Leydon,
the Stamford lawyer who brought the law-
suit challenging Greenwich’s exclusionary
policy 19 years ago, said that the pandemic
made the issue of access more “murky,” but
that town officials should try to approach it
with flexibility.
“They should perhaps take it on a day-by-
day basis, let’s see how it’s going, rather
than just say the beach is closed to nonresi-
dents until October,” Mr. Leydon said. Such
“blanket declarations,” he noted, are hard to
justify when the towns are, at the same
time, welcoming nonresidents to come to
their restaurants for indoor dining.
Greenwich, for its part, is trying to strike
a balance, making available up to 350 non-
resident beach passes a day, said Fred
Camillo, the first selectman. The passes are
$8, and there is a $40 parking fee at Green-
wich Point and Byram Park beaches.
“You want to be as welcoming as you can,
while being fair to the residents who are
footing the bill too,” Mr. Camillo said.Sorry, That Surf and Sand Are for Local Toes Only
Citing Covid-19, towns in
Connecticut and Long Island
try to restrict beach access.
By LISA PREVOSTLeft and below, Jennings
Beach in Fairfield, Conn., is
strictly enforcing a
residents-only policy, citing
worries about the
coronavirus.‘Our virus numbers in
Fairfield are low right
now, we’d all like it to
stay that way.’PHOTOGRAPHS BY JANE BEILES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESSOHO 580 BROADWAY
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