Dan's Papers - March 13, 2009 - Mixed Feelings - After 370 Years of Free Beach Access, Fees Mean End of an Era

One of the big reasons I moved out to the East End a half century ago was because of the small town feel there was out here. It revealed itself in many ways, not the least of which was the wave and greeting you got when you parked in front of and then went into a luncheonette or deli during the middle of the day. Everybody knew everybody. And, in contrast to the big, bad city, it had a warm and comfortable feeling about it.

I supposed the downside of small town life is the very thing that is the upside. If everybody knows you, and you know everybody else, then everybody not from here is an outsider. There were the tourists. There were the summer people, who had their own little close knit group. And so, in this friendly, snuggly place, there were cliques that formed. So it was good and bad.

Thus it is that I have nothing to say about the falling of one of the last bastions of small town life that has just happened in my hometown. For 370 years, East Hampton had a rule that said that those of us who live here could go to the beach and park for free. And we did. Now it's over. Beginning this year, locals pay $25 a year for a beach parking sticker allowing them to do so.

What a delight not paying has been for all these years. It wasn't the money really. It was just how special it made you feel. We lived in this beautiful place. It was ours. Come here and we'll make you feel at home. But feel free to leave anytime.

Indeed, East Hampton was the last of the towns on the East End to not charge for beach parking for locals. And the reason was that although there are town trustees to look after the rights of the locals in the other East End towns, none of them were as powerful as the trustees here. The trustees were elected to enforce a law that said locals could use their beaches forever and without interference and for free. They also enforced laws that did the same thing for the bays and harbors and lakes. (There's still one local bonacker out here who goes fishing in his skiff with the law that created the trustees in 1688 in a waterproof freezer bag to show the authorities on demand. No state fishing license for him. And he has gone unchallenged.)

So, as far as beach stickers were concerned, you were either in, or you were out. If you were out, by the way, you paid $350 a year for your sticker. But I suppose many of you know that.

Of course, in recent years, if you were a local you did need to have a sticker of some sort on your car, because since the outsiders needed to have stickers on their cars, if you didn't too, there would be no way for anyone to know if you were an outsider with no sticker or a local. So the Town GAVE you a sticker for free.

I still have that sticker on my car. It has no expiration date. It has my license plate number on it and as long as whatever car I use has that license plate on it, then I am good to go.

That sticker, placed on the side rear window, has been stuck onto one car after another over the years. I got it, I think, about 1993. It's the same sticker. I've owned a Navigator, then a Montero, then a Land Rover and now a Tahoe. I'd use a razor blade to carefully scrape this sticker off one car when I finished with it, and then carefully stick it back on my next car when I got that. Same license plate, same mutilated and catastrophically battered sticker. But I'm good to go.

So now that's over. And the reason is that our Town Supervisor, Bill McGintee, got our budget so far out of whack that he's charging fees for everything but breathing the air now. And we all have to buckle under or they are going to have to sell Town Hall.

I know. It's a red sticker that costs only $25, with a charge of $15 for any other cars, up to two, I happen to have, good for one year.

I can still keep the old blue forever sticker on my car as long as I want, and it says it's a forever beach parking sticker all on the up and up, but now, it isn't. Forever turns out to have its limits.

And so, for this summer, it will be a relic, an antique of a time gone by. Someday, forever beach stickers from East Hampton, all contorted and shriveled, will fetch a bunch of money at auction at Sotheby's. Until then, we can pretend it is good. But it isn't.

I know that the trustees in East Hampton recoiled in horror upon hearing that every local would now have to pay to park at the beach when it was first proposed. The King of England, who in 1688 issued the Dongan Patent to protect the rights of the English settlers on the beaches, is probably spinning in his grave at this too.

But there's really nothing that can be done. Times have changed, and what was once the birthright of every local in East Hampton is now accessible with a red beach sticker only, good until December 31, 2009. Then, on the first of January, you better have one for 2010.

Since this was written, it has come to my attention that last week, the Trustees of East Hampton have begun to talk openly about a rebellion. They own, and always did own, one particular beach in this Town, which they have leased to the Town for $1 and which the Town takes care of and collects fees to use. It is Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, one of the busiest of our summer beaches, and the Trustees are talking about what it would be like to have to pay to go to a beach you already own.

Can they play this card? They can. Can they pull the rug out from under the Town at least as far as this one beach is concerned? They could. But then, they will have to maintain it and staff it, which is a tall order for an organization that has virtually no budget and counts on the money it needs to be doled out by the Town.