Petition link here - let's free the beach!
https://chng.it/qTxhg58QksRead the new blog about spreading the message to six candidates for governor! Scroll down please.
To all 2025 New Jersey candidates for Governor and other offices:
MakeNJbeachesFree.org is committed to ending
the NJ beach fee system.
Candidates have the exciting & historic opportunity to support
Free Beaches in 2025!
A bill being debated in Trenton,
A-4816, “prohibits a requirement for beach tag for access to beach below mean high tide line for recreational purposes.”
That’s all well and good, but the beach should be free for everyone, as the Public Trust Doctrine demands. Even if you just want to sit and smell the sea air and watch the waves, that’s recreational, so let’s end the beach fee system once and for all!
In 1887, the Reverend James Francis Robinson led “wade ins” to protest the segregation of Asbury Park’s beaches. Today, discrimination takes the form of high badge prices that make disadvantaged people wait until the badge checkers (and lifeguards) go home, to swim on unguarded beaches, where most drownings occur. The well-meaning Asbury Park Council has recently offered free badges for residents who apply, but good only during the week, not weekends. So, today, segregation isn’t by designated beach, but by restricted time of access.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
A-4816 should be replaced by legislation that enhances liberty and social justice by ending the economically discriminatory, inefficient, and environmentally harmful badge and wristband fee system.
For about .002% of the yearly budget, NJ can provide each beach town with block grant funding for maintenance, lifeguards, and security. This one-five-hundredth of the pie might be more than offset by a predictable increase in tourism-related taxes and an overall boost to the state economy as residents and visitors alike enjoy hassle-free beaches.
See Make NJbeachesFree.org and contact us for more information, and to give your endorsement and receive ours. Please get in touch. We can make NJ beaches free!
Thank you,
Neil Scheck
MakeNJbeachesFree.org Director
732-233-2430 neilscheck@yahoo.com
DO YOU HATE HAVING TO
BUY AND WEAR BADGES OR WRISTBANDS
TO USE OUR PUBLIC BEACHES?
WHAT A PAIN IN THE NECK!
AND FOR SOME,
THE COST MEANS WAITING
UNTIL THE LIFEGUARDS GO HOME.
NEW JERSEY'S BEACH BADGE SYSTEM
IS ROOTED IN
RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION.
ITS PURPOSE IS NOT TO RAISE FUNDS,
BUT TO RESTRICT ACCESS
TO OUR PUBLICLY OWNED BEACHES.
WE CAN AND WE WILL CHANGE THIS!Here's the link for the petition:
https://www.change.org/MakeNJBeachesFreePlease consider signing and sharing.
NOTE: If
Change.org sends you an email to confirm
that you're a real person and not a bot,
please click, so your signature counts. Thank you!
THE PETITION:
Make New Jersey beaches free!
We ask the governor and legislators to act now
to eliminate entrance fees
and make all publicly owned beaches free for everyone.
Only in NJ must you pay
to walk on the beach and enjoy the ocean water.
It is wrong to deprive the economically disadvantaged
the basic human rights of swimming and sunbathing.
It is cruel to force the poor to wait
until lifeguards have gone home,
when most drownings occur.
It is harmful to wildlife to litter the ecosystem
with lost and discarded plastic badges and wristbands.
The beach fee system
is repressive, discriminatory, and inefficient.
The state government should dedicate
a tiny sliver of its yearly budget to reimbursing
beach towns for lifeguards and maintenance.
The resulting boost to tourism revenues
from ending the aggravation and indignity
of badges and wristbands
might even make the switch to free beaches pay for itself.
See makenjbeachesfree.com to learn more.
The time is right to free the beach!
Scroll down and click on the blog entrees to learn more.Our publicly owned beaches
should be,
and will be,
free for everyone.
It is inevitable.
Make NJ Beaches Free!
This website is young and growing.
The site and the movement will grow bigger and better.
Any help you can offer is appreciated.We will Make New Jersey Beaches Free!
(Please Keep Scrolling!)