Dan's Papers - August 31, 2007 - State Troopers Ticket 12 Surfers for "Illegal Surfing" at Montauk

You might have thought that the issue of a ticket being dismissed by Judge Rana of East Hampton for riding a surfboard off of Montauk Point was over, but it isn't. On Saturday, August 25 just days after the news came out about the dismissal of the surfing ticket, another twelve tickets were issued to twelve separate surfers that were surfing at the North Bar in Montauk. The tickets have enraged the surfing community of Montauk, who are highly organized, thanks to an organization known as Surfrider, which has members all over the East End and is a powerful economic and political force in the community.

A common myth here in Montauk is that the region's legions of fishermen and its dedicated tribes of surfers are at intense odds against each other in a constant and epic battle over access to particular pieces of The Point here at The End. Don't get us wrong - as fun as it would be for us to describe a physical conflict between the two groups, with descriptions of tumultuous tales of the clashing of boards and reels or images of those coming under fire from a slew of bait or wax - the fact remains that there just is not that much of a battle to begin with, but more of a back-and-forth banter. After all, these are the laid-back fishermen and women and easygoing surfer dudes and dudettes of the East End.

The real clash appears to be between surfers and the NYS Parks commission, who appear to have blatantly responded to the dismissal of their ticket by issuing a dozen more.

This all started in June and appeared to be over when, two weeks ago, more than twenty members of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation were on hand to watch East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana throw out a ticket that was originally given to surfer Nancy Opitz (visiting from Brooklyn) for using "an artificial swimming aid" in the area north of Montauk Point - locally known as the North Bar - right near the town-owned Turtle Cove area. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation originally cited Opitz with the bizarre ticket two months ago on June 16. The ticket was dismissed due to a lack of "furtherance of justice" when the Suffolk County District Attorney's office opted out of prosecuting Opitz for the alleged crime. According to a statement from the District Attorney's office, the prosecution was not followed up due to the fact that the officer who issued the ticket "wrote down the incorrect section of the law."

Considering this history of disagreement, the incorrect labeling on the ticket cited to Opitz almost fueled the argument to ban surfing near the north region of the Montauk Point area, but fortunately, it did not. However, it did appear to have sent a message to the NYS Department of Parks and Recreation, who knowingly issued twelve more tickets, with exactly the same wrong ordinance cited, to surfers in the area.

It would appear that the surfers simply want to surf. Most fishermen in Montauk have agreed that surfcasting and surfers can exist harmoniously, with many surfcasters throwing their lines out at Ditch Plains, one of the most popular surf destinations on the planet. This incident comes after only a few short years of debate over allowing surfers to have access to the Camp Hero area, just southeast of the Lighthouse.

The debate inspired the formation of the Surfing Advisory Committee and a policy of prohibiting surfers from riding the breaks at Camp Hero from September 6, 2004 through November 1 of the same year, unless the surfers were in the water between the hours of sunrise and 11 a.m. This prohibition was originally meant to prevent clashes between surfcasting fishermen and surfers. However, when no arguments or battles ensued, the prohibition hours were lifted and all were allowed back in the waters to ride the waves whenever they wished. Ever since, there have been no known reports of conflicts between the fishermen and the surfers.

The aftermath of the citation continues and the Surfrider Foundation plans to fight these tickets in the same way they fought the earlier one. It would seem impossible that the result will be anything other than the result obtained before. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation plan to meet with the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation as well as the Montauk Surfcasters Association within the coming weeks to discuss the issue.