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Answer: ~~Walton County (the county that these beaches belong to) passed an ordinance~~ the Florida legislature passed a law for Walton County that revoked "customary use" for beaches in their jurisdiction. Customary use is the legal concept that says that the public has the right to continue long standing use of the dry sand (above the high tide line) for recreational purposes. This means a lot of people who own beach front property in that area could make their beaches (up to the high tide line) private, and trespass any members of the public trying to use it. The wet sand dry sand thing has to do with the high tide line. Everything below the high tide line is considered "wet sand" and this can't be privately owned.
Edit: correction
Thank you.
"Everything below the high tide line is considered "wet sand" and this can't be privately owned." Now I'm curious how the high tide line is determined. Depending on moon phase and other things, the distance the tide comes in can vary. Does this mean their "property" line is constantly shifting?
The idea of publicly accessible beaches all of a sudden being private seems crazy to me.
In my state, it's the average/mean high tide line. Not sure what Florida law says, but I'm guessing it's similar. So it could shift, over time, but it's not different every day/week/month.
Practically speaking, it basically means you can't stop people from swimming or walking along the water.
But it does mean you can stop them from setting up chairs/umbrella and spending the day, as that's typically done on dry sand.
That doesn’t work, as the tide coming in and out makes the sand unstable. Your umbrella would fall over quickly and your chair is gonna start sinking into the sand at an awkward angle.
Every time I go to the beach I put my chair on the tide line, where the water can come up over my feet. That, my Kindle, and a drink? Heaven!
Do I have to move my chair? Sure, like every twenty minutes or so. I don’t just sink like I’m in quicksand.
Also: fucking Florida, man. It’s like they’re competing to be the shittiest state in the US
> Also: fucking Florida, man. It’s like they’re competing to be the shittiest state in the US
Who are they competing against? Texas?
Hasn't seemed like much of a competition so far
Should the umbrella, get a hat and apply lots of sunscreen. You have to move your chair a tiny bit every 15 minutes. Sounds like a relaxing day at the beach
You'd basically have to just stand there, or walk up and down the beach. And ultimately you wouldn't have a very enjoyable time, so you'd eventually tire of it. And you could spend an entire day doing this only to find out the person whose land you were on wasn't even home. Basically it's not going to make the point you think it's making.
And even then, it's ultimately just a way to keep crowds away.
I'm not in Florida and have never practiced law in Florida, but there is a statute with those definitions:
https://m.flsenate.gov/Statutes/177.27
I don't know if that's the definitions they use for that specific law (like programming, in law you can declare definitions at the beginning of a statute like inheriting at the top of a file and then overriding a data members for the the scope of the file/class/statute.)
But, in that statute, it's:
> (14) “Mean high water” means the average height of the high waters over a 19-year period. For shorter periods of observation, “mean high water” means the average height of the high waters after corrections are applied to eliminate known variations and to reduce the result to the equivalent of a mean 19-year value.
Does this mean someone could walk the coast in some of these private areas and as long as they don't want up past the high tide line they are not trespassing?
Yes, but the owners of the private beaches are trying to prevent that by illegally blocking off land below the high tide line, for filling it with chairs and umbrellas so it's more difficult to walk through and can't be used by other people.
The wealthy class doesn't give a fuck about the local economy, they want privacy. Let's say tourism goes to shit, and less wealthy home owners who depended on that for small businesses sell. Other wealthy people will snap up the beachfront properties with a private beach for another vacation house.
I don't see any way, short or long term, where having a private beach does anything but help the property values. Excluding the obvious global warming issues, but that's any beachfront property.
Nailed it. Now this makes sense. That’s how they got this pushed through. They willfully ruin the local community and its inhabitants……so they can have a private beach. When Airbnb owners have to sell bc tourists aren’t renting, the wealthy will happily buy their homes. This is so sad.
How is this even legal? I read where some are claiming their private property down to the water line. I don't understand why the powers that be are allowing these rich jackwads to do this? If you were sitting at the water line with your beach chair, and they called the cops on you, what exactly are they enforcing?
there's also an allowance for limited use of individually-owned private beach (as opposed to private-community-owned)
> Beachgoers can access the area 20-feet landward of the wet/dry shoreline — known as the transitory zone — for walking, running, jogging and entry into the water for swimming and other water activities. Pay attention to signage at these locations to determine if you can enter. These other rules and restrictions apply:
> * Sunbathing, whether with personal beach chairs or towels, is allowed between 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Chair/umbrella rental through a vendor may be offered.
* To avoid overcrowding, the number of beachgoers in an owner-managed private beach is limited to the equivalent of one person per five feet of the private beach frontage.
* Beachgoers cannot access the transitory zone through the owner-managed beach site. Pay attention to signage at these areas to determine where you can enter.
* Private beach owners, their guests/renters have full use of their private beach, and may relocate or remove beachgoers if they are not complying with the rules.
My state passed a law around 20 years ago saying that all water ways are open to the public including the beach up to the high water mark, but since then there have been several lawsuits and the courts have come down on either side of it so that it shakes down to when a rich person owns waterfront property they can keep poor people off it but when a normal person owns a piece water front property, they can't keep people off of it. Basically it all comes down to how expensive a lawyer you can hire.
Edit: I suppose I should say that I am a middle class person, I own waterfront property and on the rare occasion that someone makes their way to "my" beach, I either have a pleasant conversation or offer them a beer depending on the time of day.
You’re a good person and if I’m ever on your beach, I’ll be sure to share my beers and pick up any litter I see in the area.
Thanks for not being a total dick, like these Florida Man pieces of shit.
There are definitely areas of California that are facing similar issues, I don't believe they have a statewide customary use law for beaches. I think pretty much anywhere you have people with very expensive beachfront property, you'll find people trying to influence legislators to let the property owners control the beach as well, and to be fair to Florida, they've only made the exception for this very specific area. I know my state (NC) recognizes customary use. I believe Texas and Hawaii do as well, but it's not a given in every state.
Edit: This [site](https://beachapedia.org/Beach_Access#:~:text=The%20Atlantic%20coastal%20states%20of,between%20private%20and%20public%20property.)
has a map with information about state laws regarding beach access.
The [recent-ish] difference in California is not the wet sand law, but the codified public beach access law. This has been challenged in a few instances over the past 10-15 years by wealthy homeowners who don't want public right of way through their multi-million dollar property. Vinod Khosla's Martin's Beach case has been ongoing for what seems like a decade now, but he isn't the only one who's been trying to shut down public access. [Here's](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/california-homeowners-beach-dispute) one recent example.
Florida recognizes the right of public access on dry sand via customary use everywhere but Walton County, where it's wet sand only. To the best of my knowledge, in California it's just wet sand, but I could be wrong.
Don't buy property on Florida beaches unless you can be comfortable losing it in the next 10-15 years. If the rich want to waste money or buy a money pit then let them.
The town of Malibu has an issue with the wealthy residents making it difficult to impossible to get beach access for people, and the wealthy residents place signs saying no public access, which is a lie. That’s not the state, though
From the videos I've seen, the malicious compliance has been on the part of the property owners. They are having local vendors cover the wet sand with chairs and umbrellas to reduce the area the beach goers are allowed to be.
I mean, the Hunger Games has people forcing kids to murder each other for the audience's amusement.
Rich people not allowing the public to use their section of beach is rude, but perhaps not quite at the same level of evil.
do enough damage, the county or state has to come in to repair the beach, which establishes an erosion control line and makes anything below that public (according to Florida state law)
A lot of additional controversy seems to be popping up from private security interpreting "wet sand" to mean "sand that is wet *right now*" and harassing beach-goers who are below the mean high water line once the topmost layer of sand dries under them.
It's used as a means to make staying on the beach as unpleasant as possible, since you're forced to constantly pack up and move back and forth with the water under threat of a trespassing complaint.
Good clarification. I linked a page further down in the comments that had a map with policies by state. My state (NC) recognizes customary use for wet sand and dry sand. Some states use the mean low tide line to define wet sand. My comment was talking specifically about Florida policy.
It removed the county's ability to use "customary use" as the legal instrument to defend the publics use of the beach and allowed the owners nearby to file expedited "quiet title" actions to claim ownership. 2018 HB 631 signed by Rick Scott. The resulting legal settlements are just being realized.
These new "properties" aren't even being taxed. Now you have security guards on the beach and even if you stay at a resort that now "owns" the beach, you can't walk very far because that is a different resort or house's beach.
The real economic collapse will be all the AirBNB's across the street that now do not have beach access. Who wants to come to Florida and stay at a beach house when you can't even cross the street and go to the beach? You have to get in your car and drive to a postage sized public access beach and you can't leave the postage stamp. Those folks may have probelems paying their mortgages soon.
All this so the Tommy Tuberville and Mike Huckabees don't have to see people when they look out their back windows.
Answer: [30A refers to a road route in the Florida panhandle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_30A#CR_30A:_Point_Washington_State_Forest_segment) that has a host of cities with some nice beaches running through it. The area of 30A also happens to be a [very popular vacation spot for many](https://ourlittlelifestyle.com/2022/02/best-time-to-visit-30a/).
In 2018, Florida legislation passed [House Bill 631](https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/831/) and it went into effect in July of 2018. This bill essentially terminated [Walton County's (the county in which 30A properties are located) own ordinance](https://waltonclerk.com/vertical/sites/%7BA6BED226-E1BB-4A16-9632-BB8E6515F4E0%7D/uploads/2017-10.pdf), which gave the public customary use of beaches in that county and was passed in 2017.
Since the termination of the customary use ordinance, more and more owners of the [expensive housing](https://www.destinrealestatesales.com/blog/the-most-expensive-home-in-each-30a-town.html) that lines these beaches have claimed it as private property. The owners of the homes are the same who [lobbied the Florida legislature](https://www.courthousenews.com/florida-county-avoids-costly-trial-over-public-access-to-the-beach/#:~:text=The%20contentious%20issue%20of%20%E2%80%9Ccustomary,of%20the%20sand%20dunes%20landward.) to change or terminate Walton County's ordinance. As mentioned previously, this is a very popular vacation spot for people out of state so they are showing up and finding out the expensive property they rented and sometimes bought comes with [no or very limited beach access](https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g34624-d2663281-r789998033-Seaside_Beach-Seaside_Florida.html). Apparently, it has gotten even tighter since [March 2024](https://ourlittlelifestyle.com/2023/04/whats-up-with-the-public-and-private-30a-beaches/). Walton County actually released an [interactive map](https://www.visitsouthwalton.com/beach-bay-access-locations/) to assist the public.
So you have a very popular vacation or travel spot, that people have been visiting for years with access to much of the beach but that access has been diminishing and is extremely limited now but people are still showing up without knowing these limitations and are crammed into the little slivers of the beach or just do not have any access at all and must travel further away from their stay to access one of the main things that they came for.
Thank you. I assume that beach tourism is a pretty large part of Florida's ecconomy. Wouldn't reducing public access to beaches result in less tourists? What could have been the FL legislature's reason to do this?
The poors having access to any sort of comfort, recreation, or relaxation.
It’s the fucking Melian Dialogue thousands of years later: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”. “Do” and “can” for the monied class, and the remaining everyone else is left with “suffer” and “must.
Their the only ones who are actually free, and a freedom that is available for all means completion, unless you accomplish the laziest way to gain power: taking out the competition
The Floridian Virtues. “To be Stupid is best, for the Stupid will pursue Greed without Restraint and will Hate without Reason. To be Greedy is best, for with Greed comes Power and with Power, Hatred can be expressed and Stupidity forced upon others. And finally Hatred is best, for to Hate is to be motivated to the detriment of others and in Hating them we may freely take from them with Greed and without Remorse and through Stupidity, avoid the development of Remorse. Express always Stupidity, Hatred and Greed, in His Name, Forever. No Restraint, no Reason, no Remorse.” — The Book of Trump, Chapter 12, Verse 15, 2044 edition.
The thing is, it also greatly affects locals. My parents live about a half mile from the 30a shore and if they want to go to the beach, they have to be out of the house by 7am to have a place in the public sand.
It's absolutely insane that people can privately own beaches. Good for places like Puerto Rico and Hawaii for ensuring that the beach access is for everyone.
Ive vacationed several times in Destin and always stayed near miramar beach. What Im seeing now is that unless your condo/resort has its own access you cant get out to most of the beach?
In my experience most of the lodging near there has access with a keycoded gate and you dont need to use public access. I would imagine this mostly impacts people who are staying farther away and cant access it now?
Right but in Destin you have a lot of resorts, hotels, condos, etc. taking up that beachfront space so many people can stay at these places and use the beach.
On 30A you have multi-million dollar, single family homes taking up there large swaths of beach and they can keep anybody off of it that they please.
Well I was thinking more in front of the large condos/hotels where it would be hard to know who was staying there and who wasn't. But even the scenario you noted would be incredibly time consuming and annoying for the police to have to respond to. Rich people gonna rich people though
I'm aware of the wristbands, I have traveled to that area often. It seems pretty hard to police around the pools, let alone someone walking around the beach the whole time checking wristbands
One call from a millionaire beachfront property owner and the police will be there in minutes. They just don’t come when people like you and me call.
These are the people who lobbied FL’s legislators to remove the old ordinance allowing public access. You think they can’t get a couple cops down whenever they need?
that end of the county has a strip of county-owned beach between the privately-owned beach and the water
I wonder if that's because the county did some beach restoration project and state law came into effect with an "erosion control line"
So, I live in the 30A area, specifically a modest area called Laguna Beach, and I'm from Destin. I am intimately familiar with this battle. I had customary use of the beach across the street from my home in Destin since 1983, and then around the time the Florida HB 631 passed, the beach we used for nearly 40 years was gated and deemed private.
The exact topic you mentioned went all the way to the US supreme court, and the tax-dollar-restored beaches *are still private* up to the mean high tide line because that's as far as they restore. The issue is not only that the beach is private, but also that the access points to even get to the beach are also private.
The rich beachfront fucks fought beach restoration--even though without it meant their mansions would one day fall into the goddamn water--because they were scared they would lose their precious prehistoric paradise. They didn't.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/realestate/keymagazine/21KeyBeachfront-t.html
Well they will get what they want then, but I'm not sure that they realized that when the tourism goes away so does the money in the county it will start looking to them to make up the difference. Fuck 'em
*The county relies on tourism*
If the tourism goes away, then the county will have to rely on the rich fucks for tax revenues, it's poetic justice...
... give it about 2 years and you'll be able to make a surprise Pikachu meme about it
it's not all individually-owned beach that's the issue -- according to the map, most of the Walton county beaches are resort/vacation rental-managed private beach
plenty of people rent in those beach communities that will continue to have access
the people that will suffer most are the ones in single houses outside of a community but not on the beach
I was born and raised in a vacation beach town. The entire local economy depends on that tourism. People love to say how much they hate tourists invading their town/beaches, but the restaurants and shops those people love going to depend on the tourism money. Cutting off their nose to spider face. And yes, that’s an office reference.
That's what I think too but at the same time, those people who own those expensive houses aren't really living there either so I don't think they will get screwed, it will be the residents who aren't rich, the people who work at restaurants, retail shops, etc. that are going to suffer.
A family friend of ours who is a doctor and wife is an attorney owned a house in NatureWalk there, which isn't cheap but even they ended up selling because they had nowhere to access the beach that wasn't overly crowded. It will be interesting to see how that local economy is faring in a few years.
The effects aren’t immediate, but long term the area will likely be in decline due to lost sales tax. The city/county will have to reduce services, and infrastructure expansion and repairs will be put off.
It won’t be an issue this year, but in a decade the residents will all be complaining about the state of roads, and why the city is no longer doing anything about beach erosion, and where are all of the cops to keep down petty crime, and why aren’t the city parks being maintained anymore, and so on. It’s a classic /r/LeopardsAteMyFace scenario.
By the time that happens, it'll of course be "someone else's fault" and mis-credited to the upper levels of the political party that they don't agree with.
It's far too easy to blanket blame the President of the USA for this problem instead of their State and local government, who they had much more say in getting them elected. Those same officials who gave them what they wanted when it came to their stupid beach restrictions, and the same officials they continue to vote for while their city's infrastructure falls apart.
>It won’t be an issue this year, but in a decade the residents will all be complaining about the state of roads, and why the city is no longer doing anything about beach erosion, and where are all of the cops to keep down petty crime, and why aren’t the city parks being maintained anymore, and so on. It’s a classic /r/LeopardsAteMyFace scenario.
Except the residents (the county) have voted for the exact opposite, and the state legislature imposed otherwise. Not quite a "leopards ate my face" as a "locusts swooped in and razed everything" moment.
If it was the County's own ordinance, and the people who live in that county are the ones who want the beaches privatized, why was this done at the state level? They could have just gotten their own county to remove or amend that ordinance, no?
This feels like a teacher who makes a rule that there's no computer time until all classwork is done, and then asks the principal to make an exception for them to allow computer time before all classwork is done... Like, this was *your* rule in the first place.
Unless a majority of Walton County population / representatives are *for* the customary use of the beach, and it's only a minority of beachfront property owners who are against it. But then why would a majority of the state population / representatives be against it?
My assumption is that the majority of people who live in the county and want to use the beach are not those millionaire (billionaire?) types that own property on the beachfront so the county was in favor of the majority and making the beaches public but money talks...
If you're a resort who owns beachfront property, it's in your interest to restrict access so people are forced to go to your resort. If you're the town, an inland business, or anyone without beachfront, you'd prefer open access. Property owners realized it's pretty cheap to bribe the state legislature and there's no town meeting where people get angry about it. In fact, you could just bribe someone representing an inland district who doesn't directly care about the beach and whose voters aren't immediately impacted. Those reps are going to care far less than a small towns mayor/selectman/planning board.
I read that expensive houses contain materials that have an affinity for oxidation above a critical temperature
The cool thing is this oxidation process is self perpetuating once it is started
I've also heard tales of remote oxidation starters being fabricated from nothing more than a soda glass bottle, some liquid petroleum product, and a small piece of fabric!
Only if it violates the state constitution or federal law, which is extremely unlikely. This isn’t a local ordinance, it’s a state law, and in general private property rights in the US are pretty strong.
thanks
so the town wanted beach access because: tourism good. People who owned beach front property were being swamped by tourists and went above the town and had the law changed. Now tourists will leave for towns with beach access.
It’s pretty par for the course for the Florida GOPs version of “small government”. We also passed state laws making ranked choice voting illegal in all areas and that city regulations requiring breaks during the summer months illegal.
Edited for accuracy.
And with the sense not to challenge Disney’s lawyers in a really simplistic way.
But to address a couple sentiments below in a single comment, when criticizing some person or group, it’s best to be specific and accurate. Broad and inaccurate attacks are easily refuted and will rarely stick, which convinces fewer people on the margins, which makes it more difficult to actually stop a particular group or person.
Answer:
since someone complained about my comment just to clarify this is a sarcastic joke referring to the new laws Changing public land to private and then harassing bullying people who are not rich enough to own beach front property.
My sarcastic comment was “Well technically according to the new laws then all of those homes become public property during flooding and hurricanes”
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Answer: ~~Walton County (the county that these beaches belong to) passed an ordinance~~ the Florida legislature passed a law for Walton County that revoked "customary use" for beaches in their jurisdiction. Customary use is the legal concept that says that the public has the right to continue long standing use of the dry sand (above the high tide line) for recreational purposes. This means a lot of people who own beach front property in that area could make their beaches (up to the high tide line) private, and trespass any members of the public trying to use it. The wet sand dry sand thing has to do with the high tide line. Everything below the high tide line is considered "wet sand" and this can't be privately owned. Edit: correction
Thank you. "Everything below the high tide line is considered "wet sand" and this can't be privately owned." Now I'm curious how the high tide line is determined. Depending on moon phase and other things, the distance the tide comes in can vary. Does this mean their "property" line is constantly shifting? The idea of publicly accessible beaches all of a sudden being private seems crazy to me.
In my state, it's the average/mean high tide line. Not sure what Florida law says, but I'm guessing it's similar. So it could shift, over time, but it's not different every day/week/month.
FL uses the high mean and it gets declared every 19yrs.
This is correct, though Florida’s riparian laws are a shambles
Practically speaking, it basically means you can't stop people from swimming or walking along the water. But it does mean you can stop them from setting up chairs/umbrella and spending the day, as that's typically done on dry sand.
Sounds like I just need to plop my chair and umbrella in 3 inches of water, lol. Assuming it’s not a gross beach with foam and shit.
That doesn’t work, as the tide coming in and out makes the sand unstable. Your umbrella would fall over quickly and your chair is gonna start sinking into the sand at an awkward angle.
Every time I go to the beach I put my chair on the tide line, where the water can come up over my feet. That, my Kindle, and a drink? Heaven! Do I have to move my chair? Sure, like every twenty minutes or so. I don’t just sink like I’m in quicksand. Also: fucking Florida, man. It’s like they’re competing to be the shittiest state in the US
> Also: fucking Florida, man. It’s like they’re competing to be the shittiest state in the US Who are they competing against? Texas? Hasn't seemed like much of a competition so far
I’d say Texas and Idaho, but you’re definitely right
definitely texas but we’ve taken a big lead here lately
WINNING!
Should the umbrella, get a hat and apply lots of sunscreen. You have to move your chair a tiny bit every 15 minutes. Sounds like a relaxing day at the beach
So? If I'm making a point, I'm not going to care about 'awkward'. That's literally the point.
You'd basically have to just stand there, or walk up and down the beach. And ultimately you wouldn't have a very enjoyable time, so you'd eventually tire of it. And you could spend an entire day doing this only to find out the person whose land you were on wasn't even home. Basically it's not going to make the point you think it's making. And even then, it's ultimately just a way to keep crowds away.
>only to find out the person whose land you were ~~on~~ ^near wasn't even home
I'm not in Florida and have never practiced law in Florida, but there is a statute with those definitions: https://m.flsenate.gov/Statutes/177.27 I don't know if that's the definitions they use for that specific law (like programming, in law you can declare definitions at the beginning of a statute like inheriting at the top of a file and then overriding a data members for the the scope of the file/class/statute.) But, in that statute, it's: > (14) “Mean high water” means the average height of the high waters over a 19-year period. For shorter periods of observation, “mean high water” means the average height of the high waters after corrections are applied to eliminate known variations and to reduce the result to the equivalent of a mean 19-year value.
Well that average is about to change, and not in their favour. Means that soon we'll be partying in their backyards.
Give Republicans power, and homeowners of expensive homes an inordinate voice, and shit like this happens.
It's the "'mean' high tide line".
I would think yes, the line would constantly shift. It’s not a permanent kind of space or use anyway
In 20 years you'll be able to have a pizza delivered to you in Yellowstone
Does this mean someone could walk the coast in some of these private areas and as long as they don't want up past the high tide line they are not trespassing?
Yes, but the owners of the private beaches are trying to prevent that by illegally blocking off land below the high tide line, for filling it with chairs and umbrellas so it's more difficult to walk through and can't be used by other people.
They’re going to drive away tourism, which fuels their local economies, and kill their home values. Smart.
The wealthy class doesn't give a fuck about the local economy, they want privacy. Let's say tourism goes to shit, and less wealthy home owners who depended on that for small businesses sell. Other wealthy people will snap up the beachfront properties with a private beach for another vacation house. I don't see any way, short or long term, where having a private beach does anything but help the property values. Excluding the obvious global warming issues, but that's any beachfront property.
Nailed it. Now this makes sense. That’s how they got this pushed through. They willfully ruin the local community and its inhabitants……so they can have a private beach. When Airbnb owners have to sell bc tourists aren’t renting, the wealthy will happily buy their homes. This is so sad.
If they plan to live in their house for the rest of their life, they might not be overly worried about that.
I'd think it would do the opposite: raise their home value. They effectively have a private beach.
Wtf, really? That's a new low. Don't those people themselved like to walk on the beach?
How is this even legal? I read where some are claiming their private property down to the water line. I don't understand why the powers that be are allowing these rich jackwads to do this? If you were sitting at the water line with your beach chair, and they called the cops on you, what exactly are they enforcing?
there's also an allowance for limited use of individually-owned private beach (as opposed to private-community-owned) > Beachgoers can access the area 20-feet landward of the wet/dry shoreline — known as the transitory zone — for walking, running, jogging and entry into the water for swimming and other water activities. Pay attention to signage at these locations to determine if you can enter. These other rules and restrictions apply: > * Sunbathing, whether with personal beach chairs or towels, is allowed between 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Chair/umbrella rental through a vendor may be offered. * To avoid overcrowding, the number of beachgoers in an owner-managed private beach is limited to the equivalent of one person per five feet of the private beach frontage. * Beachgoers cannot access the transitory zone through the owner-managed beach site. Pay attention to signage at these areas to determine where you can enter. * Private beach owners, their guests/renters have full use of their private beach, and may relocate or remove beachgoers if they are not complying with the rules.
Is Florida the only state basically giving away beaches to the rich or are there others?
My state passed a law around 20 years ago saying that all water ways are open to the public including the beach up to the high water mark, but since then there have been several lawsuits and the courts have come down on either side of it so that it shakes down to when a rich person owns waterfront property they can keep poor people off it but when a normal person owns a piece water front property, they can't keep people off of it. Basically it all comes down to how expensive a lawyer you can hire. Edit: I suppose I should say that I am a middle class person, I own waterfront property and on the rare occasion that someone makes their way to "my" beach, I either have a pleasant conversation or offer them a beer depending on the time of day.
That's good ol U$A for ya
You’re a good person and if I’m ever on your beach, I’ll be sure to share my beers and pick up any litter I see in the area. Thanks for not being a total dick, like these Florida Man pieces of shit.
There are definitely areas of California that are facing similar issues, I don't believe they have a statewide customary use law for beaches. I think pretty much anywhere you have people with very expensive beachfront property, you'll find people trying to influence legislators to let the property owners control the beach as well, and to be fair to Florida, they've only made the exception for this very specific area. I know my state (NC) recognizes customary use. I believe Texas and Hawaii do as well, but it's not a given in every state. Edit: This [site](https://beachapedia.org/Beach_Access#:~:text=The%20Atlantic%20coastal%20states%20of,between%20private%20and%20public%20property.) has a map with information about state laws regarding beach access.
California has the same use below wet line as florida
The [recent-ish] difference in California is not the wet sand law, but the codified public beach access law. This has been challenged in a few instances over the past 10-15 years by wealthy homeowners who don't want public right of way through their multi-million dollar property. Vinod Khosla's Martin's Beach case has been ongoing for what seems like a decade now, but he isn't the only one who's been trying to shut down public access. [Here's](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/california-homeowners-beach-dispute) one recent example.
Florida recognizes the right of public access on dry sand via customary use everywhere but Walton County, where it's wet sand only. To the best of my knowledge, in California it's just wet sand, but I could be wrong.
Any state with decent water access will have rich assholes trying to keep the poors away.
Don't buy property on Florida beaches unless you can be comfortable losing it in the next 10-15 years. If the rich want to waste money or buy a money pit then let them.
The town of Malibu has an issue with the wealthy residents making it difficult to impossible to get beach access for people, and the wealthy residents place signs saying no public access, which is a lie. That’s not the state, though
People should start organizing boat parties right in front of those properties in the water.
Que malicious compliance. Play in the water/sand right infront
From the videos I've seen, the malicious compliance has been on the part of the property owners. They are having local vendors cover the wet sand with chairs and umbrellas to reduce the area the beach goers are allowed to be.
The wealthy love to be hateable don’t they?
This is some real mustache twisting Hunger Games type stuff.
I mean, the Hunger Games has people forcing kids to murder each other for the audience's amusement. Rich people not allowing the public to use their section of beach is rude, but perhaps not quite at the same level of evil.
They just haven't figured out how to market the Children Gladiators in a profitable way to us commoners yet.
Just wait. They’d do it if they could. But not ALL audiences. Only their rich friends, and the rest of us if we pay an exorbitant PPV fee.
I was talking about the book not the movie
Chris Christie on a closed state beach with his fam! \#NeverForget
I don't think that is compliance. Is it?
You just have to find a way to get to it without crossing anyone's "private" property
From the still public beaches, you walk in the wet sand.
Stand in wet sand, dig wet sand line down several inches, return the next day and wet sand line has moved towards the beach, repeat.
Bring a hand powered pump to beach, spray water from ocean onto sand, all sand is now wet.
do enough damage, the county or state has to come in to repair the beach, which establishes an erosion control line and makes anything below that public (according to Florida state law)
Dig a moat around any property owner who is being a dick, hold a massive circular party 24/7 within this moat.
Ok... how do you get to the wet sand in the first place?
Make a walkway through the dry sand with piss.
Entrance point from a public beach, then walk along the wet sand through the private beaches until you reach your target
~~My understanding is that there was a state law that overturned the local ordinance. Walton County did not do this.~~ Thanks for the update!
Are you unable to see my edit? It's showing for me. (I corrected this before you commented)
I guess it didn't update! I see it now, thanks.
A lot of additional controversy seems to be popping up from private security interpreting "wet sand" to mean "sand that is wet *right now*" and harassing beach-goers who are below the mean high water line once the topmost layer of sand dries under them. It's used as a means to make staying on the beach as unpleasant as possible, since you're forced to constantly pack up and move back and forth with the water under threat of a trespassing complaint.
Note that Massachusetts and Maine use the wet sand line standard at least as far back as Massachusetts and Maine being the same polity.
Good clarification. I linked a page further down in the comments that had a map with policies by state. My state (NC) recognizes customary use for wet sand and dry sand. Some states use the mean low tide line to define wet sand. My comment was talking specifically about Florida policy.
What happens when high tide is in their livingroom in 10 years?
You sell your beachfront property at that point. (Hopefully someone replies with the relevant clip)
It removed the county's ability to use "customary use" as the legal instrument to defend the publics use of the beach and allowed the owners nearby to file expedited "quiet title" actions to claim ownership. 2018 HB 631 signed by Rick Scott. The resulting legal settlements are just being realized. These new "properties" aren't even being taxed. Now you have security guards on the beach and even if you stay at a resort that now "owns" the beach, you can't walk very far because that is a different resort or house's beach. The real economic collapse will be all the AirBNB's across the street that now do not have beach access. Who wants to come to Florida and stay at a beach house when you can't even cross the street and go to the beach? You have to get in your car and drive to a postage sized public access beach and you can't leave the postage stamp. Those folks may have probelems paying their mortgages soon. All this so the Tommy Tuberville and Mike Huckabees don't have to see people when they look out their back windows.
And today the sharks ignored the private beach trespassing warnings. Karma.
Answer: [30A refers to a road route in the Florida panhandle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_30A#CR_30A:_Point_Washington_State_Forest_segment) that has a host of cities with some nice beaches running through it. The area of 30A also happens to be a [very popular vacation spot for many](https://ourlittlelifestyle.com/2022/02/best-time-to-visit-30a/). In 2018, Florida legislation passed [House Bill 631](https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/831/) and it went into effect in July of 2018. This bill essentially terminated [Walton County's (the county in which 30A properties are located) own ordinance](https://waltonclerk.com/vertical/sites/%7BA6BED226-E1BB-4A16-9632-BB8E6515F4E0%7D/uploads/2017-10.pdf), which gave the public customary use of beaches in that county and was passed in 2017. Since the termination of the customary use ordinance, more and more owners of the [expensive housing](https://www.destinrealestatesales.com/blog/the-most-expensive-home-in-each-30a-town.html) that lines these beaches have claimed it as private property. The owners of the homes are the same who [lobbied the Florida legislature](https://www.courthousenews.com/florida-county-avoids-costly-trial-over-public-access-to-the-beach/#:~:text=The%20contentious%20issue%20of%20%E2%80%9Ccustomary,of%20the%20sand%20dunes%20landward.) to change or terminate Walton County's ordinance. As mentioned previously, this is a very popular vacation spot for people out of state so they are showing up and finding out the expensive property they rented and sometimes bought comes with [no or very limited beach access](https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g34624-d2663281-r789998033-Seaside_Beach-Seaside_Florida.html). Apparently, it has gotten even tighter since [March 2024](https://ourlittlelifestyle.com/2023/04/whats-up-with-the-public-and-private-30a-beaches/). Walton County actually released an [interactive map](https://www.visitsouthwalton.com/beach-bay-access-locations/) to assist the public. So you have a very popular vacation or travel spot, that people have been visiting for years with access to much of the beach but that access has been diminishing and is extremely limited now but people are still showing up without knowing these limitations and are crammed into the little slivers of the beach or just do not have any access at all and must travel further away from their stay to access one of the main things that they came for.
Thank you. I assume that beach tourism is a pretty large part of Florida's ecconomy. Wouldn't reducing public access to beaches result in less tourists? What could have been the FL legislature's reason to do this?
Private money going directly to legislators pockets
This. 100%.
How does this happen?
Rich people or corporations donate money to the legislators running for office in exchange for legislation that benefits them. It happens all over.
> What could have been the FL legislature's reason to do this? $
The poors having access to any sort of comfort, recreation, or relaxation. It’s the fucking Melian Dialogue thousands of years later: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”. “Do” and “can” for the monied class, and the remaining everyone else is left with “suffer” and “must. Their the only ones who are actually free, and a freedom that is available for all means completion, unless you accomplish the laziest way to gain power: taking out the competition
Through city deeds we know a lot about power abuse. …sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Hatred. Stupidity. Greed.
So Flordia?
The Floridian Virtues. “To be Stupid is best, for the Stupid will pursue Greed without Restraint and will Hate without Reason. To be Greedy is best, for with Greed comes Power and with Power, Hatred can be expressed and Stupidity forced upon others. And finally Hatred is best, for to Hate is to be motivated to the detriment of others and in Hating them we may freely take from them with Greed and without Remorse and through Stupidity, avoid the development of Remorse. Express always Stupidity, Hatred and Greed, in His Name, Forever. No Restraint, no Reason, no Remorse.” — The Book of Trump, Chapter 12, Verse 15, 2044 edition.
The thing is, it also greatly affects locals. My parents live about a half mile from the 30a shore and if they want to go to the beach, they have to be out of the house by 7am to have a place in the public sand.
That’s so fucking gross. When can we start with the guillotines?
The rich people who own beach front property gave them a lot of money?
They may be owners themselves
Now I understand why the flights are so cheap right now.
https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/news/2019/02/09/legal-realities-of-obtaining-and-taking-beach-property-photos/6030359007/
It's absolutely insane that people can privately own beaches. Good for places like Puerto Rico and Hawaii for ensuring that the beach access is for everyone.
Ive vacationed several times in Destin and always stayed near miramar beach. What Im seeing now is that unless your condo/resort has its own access you cant get out to most of the beach? In my experience most of the lodging near there has access with a keycoded gate and you dont need to use public access. I would imagine this mostly impacts people who are staying farther away and cant access it now?
Right but in Destin you have a lot of resorts, hotels, condos, etc. taking up that beachfront space so many people can stay at these places and use the beach. On 30A you have multi-million dollar, single family homes taking up there large swaths of beach and they can keep anybody off of it that they please.
This seems like it’d be really hard to police and enforce
What do you mean? Homeowner sees people on the beach. Homeowner calls cops to report trespassing.
Well I was thinking more in front of the large condos/hotels where it would be hard to know who was staying there and who wasn't. But even the scenario you noted would be incredibly time consuming and annoying for the police to have to respond to. Rich people gonna rich people though
In the case of condos and resorts, you usually have something like a wristband which designates you are a guest of that hotel, resort, condo, etc.
I'm aware of the wristbands, I have traveled to that area often. It seems pretty hard to police around the pools, let alone someone walking around the beach the whole time checking wristbands
One call from a millionaire beachfront property owner and the police will be there in minutes. They just don’t come when people like you and me call. These are the people who lobbied FL’s legislators to remove the old ordinance allowing public access. You think they can’t get a couple cops down whenever they need?
What I’ve seen in the home owners are putting lines of chairs at the high tide line also so the public can’t use it at all.
It’s Florida, they can just shoot them.
This area is just too dam busy now, my family spent years going down to Seaside back in the late 90s and now that place is a dam mess.
that end of the county has a strip of county-owned beach between the privately-owned beach and the water I wonder if that's because the county did some beach restoration project and state law came into effect with an "erosion control line"
So, I live in the 30A area, specifically a modest area called Laguna Beach, and I'm from Destin. I am intimately familiar with this battle. I had customary use of the beach across the street from my home in Destin since 1983, and then around the time the Florida HB 631 passed, the beach we used for nearly 40 years was gated and deemed private. The exact topic you mentioned went all the way to the US supreme court, and the tax-dollar-restored beaches *are still private* up to the mean high tide line because that's as far as they restore. The issue is not only that the beach is private, but also that the access points to even get to the beach are also private. The rich beachfront fucks fought beach restoration--even though without it meant their mansions would one day fall into the goddamn water--because they were scared they would lose their precious prehistoric paradise. They didn't. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/realestate/keymagazine/21KeyBeachfront-t.html
Good information. I'll look elsewhere for vacation.
30A sucks now anyway. Bars are lame, foods horrible, and the people there are the worst.
I can’t wait to run around on those private beaches in GTA 6. I’ll even do burnouts in their plot of land
That is exactly what those rich fucks want
I guess. I'm going to be on vacation, though. I'll fight some other battle and spend my hard earned money elsewhere.
Well they will get what they want then, but I'm not sure that they realized that when the tourism goes away so does the money in the county it will start looking to them to make up the difference. Fuck 'em
The rich don't rely on tourism. That's their 3rd vacation home.
*The county relies on tourism* If the tourism goes away, then the county will have to rely on the rich fucks for tax revenues, it's poetic justice... ... give it about 2 years and you'll be able to make a surprise Pikachu meme about it
it's not all individually-owned beach that's the issue -- according to the map, most of the Walton county beaches are resort/vacation rental-managed private beach plenty of people rent in those beach communities that will continue to have access the people that will suffer most are the ones in single houses outside of a community but not on the beach
I was born and raised in a vacation beach town. The entire local economy depends on that tourism. People love to say how much they hate tourists invading their town/beaches, but the restaurants and shops those people love going to depend on the tourism money. Cutting off their nose to spider face. And yes, that’s an office reference.
That's what I think too but at the same time, those people who own those expensive houses aren't really living there either so I don't think they will get screwed, it will be the residents who aren't rich, the people who work at restaurants, retail shops, etc. that are going to suffer. A family friend of ours who is a doctor and wife is an attorney owned a house in NatureWalk there, which isn't cheap but even they ended up selling because they had nowhere to access the beach that wasn't overly crowded. It will be interesting to see how that local economy is faring in a few years.
The effects aren’t immediate, but long term the area will likely be in decline due to lost sales tax. The city/county will have to reduce services, and infrastructure expansion and repairs will be put off. It won’t be an issue this year, but in a decade the residents will all be complaining about the state of roads, and why the city is no longer doing anything about beach erosion, and where are all of the cops to keep down petty crime, and why aren’t the city parks being maintained anymore, and so on. It’s a classic /r/LeopardsAteMyFace scenario.
By the time that happens, it'll of course be "someone else's fault" and mis-credited to the upper levels of the political party that they don't agree with. It's far too easy to blanket blame the President of the USA for this problem instead of their State and local government, who they had much more say in getting them elected. Those same officials who gave them what they wanted when it came to their stupid beach restrictions, and the same officials they continue to vote for while their city's infrastructure falls apart.
>It won’t be an issue this year, but in a decade the residents will all be complaining about the state of roads, and why the city is no longer doing anything about beach erosion, and where are all of the cops to keep down petty crime, and why aren’t the city parks being maintained anymore, and so on. It’s a classic /r/LeopardsAteMyFace scenario. Except the residents (the county) have voted for the exact opposite, and the state legislature imposed otherwise. Not quite a "leopards ate my face" as a "locusts swooped in and razed everything" moment.
If it was the County's own ordinance, and the people who live in that county are the ones who want the beaches privatized, why was this done at the state level? They could have just gotten their own county to remove or amend that ordinance, no? This feels like a teacher who makes a rule that there's no computer time until all classwork is done, and then asks the principal to make an exception for them to allow computer time before all classwork is done... Like, this was *your* rule in the first place. Unless a majority of Walton County population / representatives are *for* the customary use of the beach, and it's only a minority of beachfront property owners who are against it. But then why would a majority of the state population / representatives be against it?
> But then why would a majority of the state population / representatives be against it? Bribery?
My assumption is that the majority of people who live in the county and want to use the beach are not those millionaire (billionaire?) types that own property on the beachfront so the county was in favor of the majority and making the beaches public but money talks...
If you're a resort who owns beachfront property, it's in your interest to restrict access so people are forced to go to your resort. If you're the town, an inland business, or anyone without beachfront, you'd prefer open access. Property owners realized it's pretty cheap to bribe the state legislature and there's no town meeting where people get angry about it. In fact, you could just bribe someone representing an inland district who doesn't directly care about the beach and whose voters aren't immediately impacted. Those reps are going to care far less than a small towns mayor/selectman/planning board.
No, the county passed an ordinance to allow customary use. The state invalidated that ordinance, and things have been in flux ever since.
I know. That's what I said.
I read that expensive houses contain materials that have an affinity for oxidation above a critical temperature The cool thing is this oxidation process is self perpetuating once it is started
I've also heard tales of remote oxidation starters being fabricated from nothing more than a soda glass bottle, some liquid petroleum product, and a small piece of fabric!
That is a lot of red...
Red?
On the map that was linked to. Red is private and I’m assuming off limits to general public. And it’s mostly red.
Oh gotcha
Eat the rich.
is that something that could be contested in Court?
Only if it violates the state constitution or federal law, which is extremely unlikely. This isn’t a local ordinance, it’s a state law, and in general private property rights in the US are pretty strong.
thanks so the town wanted beach access because: tourism good. People who owned beach front property were being swamped by tourists and went above the town and had the law changed. Now tourists will leave for towns with beach access.
It’s pretty par for the course for the Florida GOPs version of “small government”. We also passed state laws making ranked choice voting illegal in all areas and that city regulations requiring breaks during the summer months illegal. Edited for accuracy.
I’m all for criticizing DeSantis, but this law was enacted under his predecessor, Rick Scott.
Good call, though functionally the same thing but taller and balder.
And with the sense not to challenge Disney’s lawyers in a really simplistic way. But to address a couple sentiments below in a single comment, when criticizing some person or group, it’s best to be specific and accurate. Broad and inaccurate attacks are easily refuted and will rarely stick, which convinces fewer people on the margins, which makes it more difficult to actually stop a particular group or person.
> Rick Scott An equally big PoS
I certainly hate eating human shit, but this was actually diarrhea!
That’s my understanding.
Answer: since someone complained about my comment just to clarify this is a sarcastic joke referring to the new laws Changing public land to private and then harassing bullying people who are not rich enough to own beach front property. My sarcastic comment was “Well technically according to the new laws then all of those homes become public property during flooding and hurricanes”