Lifeguards in action on the Ocean Grove beach. Paul Goldfinger photo (2014) Click to make bigger. Re-post. 2021.
Ocean Grove Beach 2022. A professional photo shoot. Paul Goldfinger photo. You can imagine the rear view.. Is this OK?*. Who will enforce this.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger. 2021.
The OGCMA’s Beach Regulations have not been changed much since we first looked at them in 2021. We are going more or less by the rules expressed currently on the CMA web site: OceanGrove.org/beach. (2023)
A mailing was sent out in 2021 for those who wanted to obtain beach “tags” for 2022. If you ordered by mail, there would be a $7.00 mailing fee. You had to sign and return a card which promised that you would “follow all of the beach rules and regulations.”
In 2023 I ordered badges on line, and there were no rules to sign off on. And the web site does not mention signing any rules pledge.
I wonder how many of you have actually read the rules. If you haven’t, here are some that are of particular interest.
Note that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association controls most of these rules, not the Neptuners, even though the beach, boards, and parks are considered “public thoroughfares.” And it is not clear as to how they enforce the rules.
The 2021 list below is stated somewhat differently now, but is essentially the same. Now they ban alcohol (a Neptune ordinance) and they don’t mention smoking. And there are rules about canopies or tents.
You can see the exact list at OceanGrove.org. Below are the rules and regs which we find particularly interesting at Blogfinger.net, and we comment on some of them:
- You may not swim at the North End beach because it is reserved as the “primary surfing beach.” Is this fair?
- You must “obey lifeguards at all times.” So if you are a sweet young thing in a bikini, you may not want to agree to this rule.
- No electronic music unless you wear headphones. But how about other sources of noise such as loud parties or loud talk or sports radio?
- Children under age 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Will you parents with precocious, brilliant kids restrain them from going to the beach alone?
- No disrobing or changing clothes on the beach. Heck, that is a popular spectator sport.
- No burying persons below grade or in standing position. Does this mean that both the buryer and the buryee cannot be standing? Do the same rules apply if you are burying a dead person? No hole deeper than 12 inches.
- Sports fishing is allowed in “locations not being used for bathing or surfing.” Is this clear?
- No flying kites over beach or boardwalk. Is that 24/7 or only while the lifeguards are there?
- Only service dogs are allowed on the beach or boardwalk. Do they mean year-round?
- No bikes, skateboards or skates except between 3 am to 10 am (Neptune ordinance) Why is Neptune Township writing this rule? The CMA is empowered to make rules for the beach and boardwalk. The CMA has jurisdiction over those areas.
- No smoking on the beach. CMA allows smoking in their parks, but they probably made this specific area smoke-free because people pay to get on; they don’t pay to visit the parks, including Auditorium Square Park which, strangely, allows smoking despite the big wooden structure next door.
- Ball playing, Frisbees, sports activities permitted “as conditions allow.”
- No sleeping or camping overnight.
- No throwing sand.
- No activity which may endanger the safety of others.
- No open fires, but the CMA has night bonfires.
- No fishing in bathing areas. (?24/7)
- Beach badges if over 11 years old
- This is interesting in this age of thong bathing suits:
“The standard for the application of the terms ‘indecent exposure’, ‘inappropriate display’, ‘abusive act or language’ as used in the preceding sentence shall be generally accepted standard for the community of Ocean Grove in keeping with the stated purpose of the Association being to provide and maintain ‘for members and friends of the Methodist Episcopal (now United Methodist) church, a proper, convenient and desirable permanent Camp Meeting Grounds and Christian seaside resort.’”
So, who is the party of the first part? Well, you get the idea. There are more such rules and regulations; you have to decide which ones you want to obey fully, which ones you will gracefully ignore, and which ones you will obey selectively. We don’t claim to have posted every rule that exists; go to OceanGrove.org for more info.
Oh, and who gets to enforce all these rules, especially if they are 24/7? And how does the CMA insure equal justice under the law? And how does Neptune get involved if their ordinances are challenged, such as no alcohol and bike/scooters violations?
JOHNNY DEPP and HELENA BONHAM CARTER “By the Sea” from Sweeney Todd-the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics 1979)
“By the sea, Mr. Todd, that’s the life I covet
By the sea, Mr. Todd, ooh, I know you’d love it
You and me, Mr. T, we could be alone
In a house what we’d almost own
“Down by the sea, anything you say
Wouldn’t that be smashing?
“With the sea at our gate, we’ll have kippered herring
What have swum to us straight from the Straits of Bering
Every night in the kip, when we’re through our kippers
I’ll be there slipping off your slippers”
R.L. Thank you.
Famous quote: Ben Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”
To which Franklin supposedly responded, with a rejoinder at once witty and ominous: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
There are many New Jersey shore towns that have laws and ordinances or “policies ” that are completely ridiculous and many of these laws and ordinances are flat out unconstitutional but they are enforced by the local police departments even though the citizens of this country are constitutionally protected from being prosecuted by laws like these.
There are far too many small towns that think that they can make and pass any laws that they want because they don’t like something that people are doing whether it’s a constitutionally protected right or not and far too many people have no clue what their rights are, and if you don’t know and exercise your rights, you will lose your rights!!!
The first person arrested for an improper suit in OG was a young man from Philadelphia in 1891. What exactly was improper remains a mystery.
In the early days, beach towns, including OG, generally prohibited men from being topless on the beach, a trend that began on the French Riviera. Following a protest involving topless men, the town fathers of Atlantic City declared, “We don’t want gorillas on our beach.” By the end of the 1930s, these rules began to fall. OG quietly relaxed its rules before 1941. In 1939, the following poem was published in the OGT:
“I think I shall never see
A man beside the ocean sea
That looks the least bit nice or cute
Wearing a topless bathing suit.”
However, as late as 1971, rules remained in effect off the beach:
“It shall be unlawful for any person or persons within the Town of Ocean Grove, New Jersey, to appear… wearing abbreviated sunbathing apparel without a covering nor shall any person or persons appear in said areas shirtless and/or without adequate protection for the feet.”
In 1875, the Association published its rules. That numbered 15 regarded the beach.
“Boating, bathing, and fishing are prohibited at all times on the Sabbath day, and during the regular Annual Camp-meeting, at all hours of public worship at the stand, viz. 10:30 to 12 A. M., 2:30 -4, and 7:30 to 9 P. M. Bathing in a nude state is prohibited.”
The last prohibition was for a rather common practice of males in the 19th century.
No. 10 raises the basic question: “Who owns the boardwalk?” The township with its regulatory ordinance or CMA with its Sunday morning closing? And doesn’t CMA pay for and maintain the boardwalk? Where is this all written ?