Please support the campaign to replace NJ's beach badge and wristband system with state funding to be provided to the towns for lifeguards and maintenance. - The Public Trust Doctrine guarantees our right to walk across the beach, to walk along the water and sit on the sand below the high tide mark, and to swim and fish in the ocean. - This ancient right was codified in New Jersey in 2019 by an Act passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Murphy. This historic recognition sets the stage for the state to recognize our right to free beaches. - The NJ Dept of Environmental Protection, in ordering Ocean Grove to stop blocking beach access on Sunday mornings, declared: "The permittee cannot limit vertical or horizontal public access to any dry sand beach area covered under this permit nor interfere with the public's right to free use of the dry sand for intermittent recreational purposes connected with the ocean and wet sand." - The current system discriminates against those with low incomes, and its roots are in racism and segregation. The Reverend James Francis Robinson led the wade-in protest of 1887 that forced Asbury Park authorities to provide a beach for black residents, but segregation and Jim Crow policies continued for decades and today take the form of beach fees that deprive access to those of limited means. The record shows that beach badges were invented in Bradley Beach in 1929 not to raise revenue, but to restrict access and keep out 'undesirables.' - That a problem exists today is proven by the existence of charitable efforts in Asbury Park and Bradley Beach which raise money to buy badges for at least some poor people, but far from all. More recently Asbury Park has offered special free badges for low income residents, good only during the week, as if the poor are not good enough to use the beach on the weekend. Nice try, Asbury friends, but try again. This violates the judicial order that towns may not charge less for residents than non-residents. A better solution is to free the beach. - Beach fees force some people to swim after the lifeguards go home, leading to avoidable tragic drownings. People are literally dying because the beach is not free. - The system infringes on personal liberty. Is this America, or what? - It impedes the freedom to associate (most people can’t afford to buy badges for multiple towns and are prevented from associating with friends and relatives, and from meeting others, on any beach but their home beach) - Plastic badges and wristbands are harmful to the environment – at best, the roughly ten million sold yearly end up in landfills and add to the toxic leachate as they ultimately decompose and pollute ground water – or are incinerated, polluting the air we breathe. - In reality, many plastic badges and wristbands are lost or discarded in the ocean, on the beach, and on nearby streets and storm gutters – and the wristbands (a relatively new development) are particularly attractive hazards for marine wildlife to swallow and strangle to death on. - Roughly one hundred million dollars should cover the yearly cost to the state. With NJ's budget over fifty billion dollars, the expenditure for free beaches will be about .002% of the pie. It will not be noticeable, unlike our glorious liberated beaches! - As a way of raising revenue, the system is grossly inefficient, with a large sum wasted on paying people to sell and check and double check the badges and wristbands. If you are concerned about the loss of those jobs, consider that with new technology, those jobs are already doomed, like those of the Parkway toll booth attendants. Some long-term employees can transition into new positions as 'beach ambassadors' and 'safety officers' who can advise visitors and help keep the beach safe and clean. - The system is aggravating. Forget your badge, lose your badge, it’s a pain in the neck. - Being forced to buy and wear badges and wristbands is an affront to human dignity. - It causes people to avoid the beach and miss out on its physical, mental, and spiritual benefits. A free beach improves public health, and improved public health saves money. - And as those beach-alienated people have no stake in the beach, the system damages public support for protecting the beach. - It causes those who do use the beach to treat it poorly, leaving trash behind they might have picked up, if not for feeling bitter at having to pay, or feeling that their payment means its someone else’s job to clean up after them. - It suppresses tourism and depresses the economy. - It is an embarrassment when visitors find out they have to pay, and gives NJ a grifter state reputation. - It facilitates selective enforcement, which is illegal and discriminatory. - It fosters corruption, from badge checkers who look the other way and let their friends on free, to badge sellers and managers who might be tempted to find a way to skim profits, to black marketers who counterfeit badges and wristbands. - Currently there is what seems like illegal signage stating misinformation at every beach entrance. Signs should inform all persons of their legal right to walk across the beach, and along the water, and to sit on the wet sand below the high tide mark, and to swim in the ocean. These rights were reaffirmed by state legislation recently, in 2019, and now the state needs to enforce this by posting truthful signage, or better yet, by reinstituting the free beaches that always existed before the fee system was created less than a hundred years ago to restrict access. - Reasons enough to Make New Jersey beaches free!
"Make New Jersey Beaches Free Dot Com" by Neil Vincent Scheck If only we could see the world As others clearly see, Then we would sing one simple song: Make New Jersey Beaches Free. A badge, required, without real need From Spring to Summer’s end Keeps out the poor, they’ll have to wait When there’s no money to spend. Make New Jersey Beaches Free The sand, the sun, the sea For you, and you, and me My friends, can't we agree To Make New Jersey Beaches Free And why should those of little means Wait long and hot for me To say to them, my day is done Now you can swim with no fee. There’s some who’ll swim, and some will drown Swimming past guarded hours. It’s never safe, a tragic sight The empty lifeguard towers Make New Jersey Beaches Free The sand, the sun, the sea For you, and you, and me My friends, can't we agree To Make New Jersey Beaches Free And when they drown, doomed as they are No lifeguards and rough sea I’ll think of them, and say to you Make New Jersey Beaches Free In other states it’s not like this The beach is there for all Why do we lock the Garden State’s Surf and sand behind pay wall? Make New Jersey Beaches Free The sand, the sun, the sea For you, and you, and me My friends, can't we agree To Make New Jersey Beaches Free Was not always like this, you know And doesn’t have to be That’s why I’m here to sing to you In support of liberty. The sun that shines on sand and waves Belongs to everyone. No government should ever charge Men for what no man has done Make New Jersey Beaches Free The sand, the sun, the sea For you, and you, and me My friends, let's all agree To Make New Jersey Beaches Free The day will come, it won’t be long A better way we’ll see And we will know we did our part For now, and posterity To find out more and what to do It’s easy as can be. Go on the web and there you’ll find Make New Jersey Beaches Free Dot com Make New Jersey Beaches Free Dot com Free the beach And the beach Will set you free Make New Jersey Beaches Free
Learn MorePlease scroll down to read blogs, and click on the F symbol to visit the facebook page "Make NJ Beaches Free in 2023" to see the growing collection of wristband photos. Read about the history of beach badges in NJ and how the beach fee system is harmful. Thank you!