Senior Member 
Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Salem, MA
Posts: 1,033
|  Gloucester boaters/beachgoers
This is just friggin great, a couple of aholes and my favorite beach will now be monitored by big brother! I've been hanging down Wingarsheek for a number of years now, I tell people it's a great place to bring your dog, and share the beach/cool water with one's "best friend". I'm often the last one to leave, as was the case this past weekend (took Monday off). I was rather surprised (and disgusted) at how much friggin trash was left on the beach this past weekend. Full garbage bags (ripped open by the gulls the minute the humans left), the beer bottles (ok I drink there, but one at a time and the empties go back in the raft), the amount of dogsheet on the beach (ok I let my mutt run there but keep a close eye on her in case she assumes the position). I often refer to this "east end" of the beach as one of the last frontiers, ruled by common sense and courtesy. Well, did these dumb sheets on the beach this past weekend really think all that friggin trash would go unnoticed? New boaters? Out of towners? Kids? Here's the story, 2 days later, right from the local newspaper. I'm so pizzed off right now, done venting..... EDIT-The last full sentance is what I'm FUMING over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Police hit the beach to catch drinkers, dogs, litterers
By Richard Gaines
Gloucester Daily Times
View as a multiple pages
Drinkers, dogs and others who dirty the city's premier "carry-in, carry-out" beaches will no longer be tolerated, police Chief John Beaudette said yesterday.
Beaudette said "starting right now," he will begin assigning undercover officers "in Ts and shorts" to make random sweeps of Good Harbor and Wingaersheek beaches for the remainder of the summer to enforce ordinances against public drinking, dogs and littering.
The police, Beaudette said, will pay special attention to the night and overnight hours when cans and bottles, some of them broken, are left where they are consumed.
"We're going to start strict enforcement of the littering and dog ordinances," Beaudette said.
Arrests will be made for drinking in public and summonses written for violating the dog and litter ordinances.
"That's wonderful," said Patti Amaral, who co-chairs the Clean City Commission, which conceived the carry-in, carry-out program five years ago and convinced Mayor John Bell and the City Council to give it a try.
"Since the first year," Amaral said, "we've talked about stepped-up enforcement."
Enforcement will cost violators more than the cost of admission to the beach.
In recent cases heard in Gloucester District Court, public drinkers have been fined up to $100 and charged up to $250 in court costs. Violations of the dog ordinances carry a fine of up to $300. Dogs are banned from the beaches until September and must be leashed in the off-season. The fine for littering is $100 per violation.
Beaudette's announcement came in response to the growing frustration of beachgoers, beach vendors, motel managers, residents, city councilors, the mayor and members of the Clean City Commission over the fouling of the beaches.
This year's problems were started by the May deluge, which destroyed the septic system at Wingaersheek, compelling the city to bring in rented portable toilets. Since then, perceived lax maintenance of the beach and many reported incidents of drinkers leaving empty bottles and cans and of dogs taken to the beach to play and relieve themselves have added to the troubles.
The booth where admission fees are collected at Good Harbor was not assembled in time for the first beachgoers nor were signs announcing the carry-in, carry-out rules.
The city disseminated little or no public information about the program, and Amaral said that even yesterday - in midsummer - the parking lot attendants were not informing arriving beachgoers of the rules.
Amaral said she underscored the need for public education, beach maintenance and fencing around the trash bins brought in for use by the concession stand at a May meeting with Bell, Public Works Director Joseph Parisi and Public Properties Manager Mark Cole.
"The issues were not addressed," she said.
What was expected to be a preliminary discussion of the perceived slackening of enforcement and adherence to the carry-in, carry-out program at the Monday night meeting of the council's Ordinance and Administration Committee turned into a heated examination of the flaws in a program dependent on public understanding and voluntary compliance.
The city appropriates no money specifically for beach maintenance.
During the meeting, Parisi said he had cut back on personnel assigned to the beach this year in response to budget cuts.
How to reduce beach litter remained an open issue. The committee scheduled a major hearing with the full council for Aug. 21 but, by then, the planning will be for next summer.
As conceived, the carry-in, carry-out program involved intense public education about the simple rules conveyed by its title and the elimination of all trash receptacles on the beach and in parking lots, giving patrons no sanctioned option.
More and more observers have come to question whether beachgoers can be induced to haul their waste home. Ward 2's John "Gus" Foote, an early advocate of the program, argued that restoring barrels would undo the program without ending litter.
"Barrels will not be emptied every day," he said. "Leave the barrels alone. Carry-in, carry-out is working."
Amaral agreed, but argued that the trash bins at the concession stands must be fenced off to deter the public from unloading there. Photos of trash around the bins have circulated all summer. She said piles of trash implicitly encourage people to add to them.
Beaudette made his announcement in a call to the Times, less than an hour after Bell told the newspaper, "There are many things we can do to be more effective."
Bell said he intended to ask Beaudette to crack down on drinkers and dogs.
"We need better enforcement," the mayor said. Quickly correcting himself, he added, "Let me put it this way: We need enforcement."
Uniformed police officers are assigned daily to the big beaches, but as Ward 1 Councilor Jason Grow noted to the council committee, their first responsibility is to protect the cash at the entrance booths. Together, Wingaersheek and Good Harbor produce about $1 million a year through resident stickers and daily parking fees, now $25 for nonresidents.
"We need a greater presence," Grow told the committee.
On July 9, in one of a series of similar incidents, a group of teenagers drinking on Good Harbor got into a fight with a man who objected to them burying their empty beer bottles.
Grow said he was drawn into an altercation recently with a dog owner who defended his right to bring his pet to the beach - even after it nearly blindsided one of Grow's small children.
And a number of residents reported chronic trash dumping on Wingaersheek by boaters coming ashore on the bank of the Annisquam River on the beach's eastern flank.
Beach crimes and punishment
Drinking in public: Fine, court costs up to $250.
Violating dog beach ban or leash law: Fine up to $300.
Littering: $100 per violation.
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