Covid has made me question the old ways, and made me want to help make the new. Society has been forced to adapt like we’ve never seen in our lifetimes, with widespread innovation in technology, changing social structures, and new ways of interacting with each other and the world around us. But at the beach in New Jersey, come summer, it’s the same old beach fee system, where unlike in any other state, beachgoers are forced to buy and wear badges or wristbands, discouraging people with lower incomes from enjoying this precious public resource. Many of humble means are forced to wait until after the badge checkers go home before they can swim, in unguarded waters, when most drownings occur.
The pandemic’s whirlwind of change has convinced me that the right time to free New Jersey’s beaches is now, in the interest of social justice as well as personal liberty and environmental responsibility. The governor and legislature have gone so far as to eliminate fees at the state parks, on a year-by-year basis anyway. Now they need to go ‘all in’ on our right to access our beaches, by assuming the burden of beach costs as an almost imperceptible sliver of the state budget, reimbursing towns for expenses without making them extract the cash badge by badge. This will end the discriminatory, repressive, and wasteful current system, which leaves countless plastic badges and bands in the surf for marine mammals to choke on, and which frankly is a pain in the neck for everyone who wants to use the beach.
I predict that the resulting increase in tourism and related revenue will more than offset the price of lifeguards and clean beaches. Emerging from my pandemic shell with a burst of repressed creativity, I’ve written a play and a song and started a website and a petition, all with the theme and the goal, Make New Jersey Beaches Free. Learn more at makenjbeachesfree.com and consider the petition to help make this dream a reality. .