Finding a Line in the Sand for New Jersey Beach Badges

On August 21, Surfer ran our initial story on a surfer in Belmar, New Jersey being arrested for apparently not having a beach badge. For the previous 24 hours, a video of a police officer violently taking a surfer to the ground apparently over a beach badge, spread like wildfire through the surf world and on social media, in general.

Since that time, there have been several developments to the story that we felt it was our responsibility to follow up and provide some context.

The surfer has been identified as Liam Mahoney, 28, seen in the video with a singlefin longboard after surfing Hurricane Ernesto swell. Mahoney grew up locally. He now lives in Junction City, California but was back home visiting when the incident took place on Aug. 20.

The arresting officer is Class Two Special Officer Ryan Brasswell. Brasswell’s background seems to have been scrubbed from professional networking sites. When the video went viral, much of the surfing world was perplexed by the situation, as beach badges are unique to New Jersey. Both Belmar council members and the police department declined requests for interviews with SURFER.

Related: New Jersey Cops Trounce Surfer For Not Displaying Beach Badge (Video)

To give some history, the town of Belmar is in Monmouth County, a thriving year-round boardwalk beach community of approximately 6,500 people that swells to about six times that in the summer months. It has a rich surfing history and is home to Eastern Lines Surf Shop and the Belmar Pro (Sept. 6-8), formerly a WQS event that has been running for two decades straight. Its jetties tend to shape up some of the best winter swells and draw a lot of talent.

New Jersey is really the first place where American beach culture grew beyond fishing and other industries. With the large population and proximity to New York, the New Jersey Shore flourished at the turn of the century. Every single town’s economy relies completely on summer visitors. For its part, Belmar was traditionally a working-class town with strong Irish American roots, far less exclusive than some its neighboring communities and welcoming to people of modest means.

Belmar Police Chief, Tina Scott, is a 23-year veteran of the Belmar PD released a statement on August 22 stating, “To be clear, Mr. Mahoney was not arrested for not having a beach badge. He was arrested because he obstructed the officer’s investigation by refusing to give his identification or pedigree information Mr. Mahoney was also advised he was not free to leave and continue to walk away during this encounter.”

Belmar requires a beach badge for entry to the beach from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays (until 6 p.m. on holidays and weekends) from Memorial Day to Labor Day. A badge for the whole summer is $80 or a single day is $12. Neither of these badges would get you onto any other town’s beaches in New Jersey, which all have their own rates and rules (aside from Atlantic City, which does not require a badge.) Most of the year, accessing the beach is free. But badges are so much a part of the New Jersey beach experience that people collect the damn things.

Guarding a beach like Belmar, where thousands upon thousands of families (who are not familiar with the ocean) come to swim, is a considerable challenge. Charging to use the beach to offset costs goes back to the 1920s. And no matter how busy or what craziness transpires on the sand after dark, beaches are clean each morning. Unlike most coastlines, where lifeguarding is founded by the county, state and city government and/or a tourism tax, each town in New Jersey is responsible to pay for it own guard patrol and maintains the beach with its municipal public works department.

On one hand, it’s a considerable cost to small towns that have to be the stewards of the shoreline. But consider $50 for a family of four to ride whitewater and build a sandcastle or $12 to catch a few bowls off the jetty.

Belmar has not particularly transparent about the exactly where all that badge money goes. The most high-profile beach badge access case in New Jersey goes back to 1989 - Slocum vs. Belmar . The court decided that any beach admission fee revenue collected by Belmar in excess of that lawfully recoverable under N.J.S.A. 40:61-22.20 be refunded to the public in the form of future reductions of beach fees.

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Belmar was found guilty in Susko v. Belmar in 2019, when it was found to have “improperly used funds derived from beach fees to settle non-beach related litigation; improperly deposited into the Borough's general fund.”

Officer Braswell’s bodycam footage shows that Mahoney stated he didn’t need a badge to access the water. Mahoney did, however, mention using the public shower, which would indicate he wasn’t just accessing the ocean. Badge revenue pays for the showers. Braswell advised Mahoney of the access law, and offered to email him all the details that support the law. Mahoney walks away and seemed willing to leave the beach rather than show or buy a badge, which might have been the end of the matter. That’s when Braswell told him he was not free to leave and threatened him with arrest. Braswell followed Mahoney, asked him to drop his board, appears to remove the board, then attempted to handcuff him.

After back and forth, Mahoney can be heard claiming he has a badge while holding his hands together in front of his body, to keep from having them handcuffed behind his back. Things get more physical when Brasswell puts his forearm on Mahoney’s throat and then in a jarring move, takes Mahoney and another officer down to the sand. He then gets on top of Mahoney to subdue and cuff him and with the help of two other officers, while Mahoney insists that he does, in fact, have a badge.

Mahoney was escorted to a squad car and charged with disorderly conduct.

This has opened a giant bucket of bunker over who has rights to the ocean and how far municipal jurisdiction can go when someone is not using any municipal services.

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Chief Scott went on in her release to say, “The Borough is aware of some misconceptions of the law that have been circulating prior to the subject incident but seem to have gained additional traction since. Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:61-22.20 all municipalities bordering on the Atlantic Ocean have the right to charge reasonable fees for the purpose of maintaining the beach and bathing areas and for providing facilities and safeguards for people using such areas. This is so notwithstanding the right to access afforded by the Public Trust Doctrine and the requirement to pay a fee applies to all persons not otherwise subject to the exceptions of the Statute.”

She is very clear in stating, “ Surfers are not the subject of the exceptions.”

There are a few layers to this and reasonable adult can recognize the tough job small towns face in being stewards of the beach. Belmar is also a destination for the party crowd and policing isn’t easy. Furthermore, every New Jersey town has to deal with big mouths who channel their beach badge frustration by verbally abusing teenagers or senior citizens working summer jobs.

The Mayor and Council of Belmar are not deaf to the bad rap the town is getting around the world. They released their own statement , saying, “We would like to emphasize that we welcome the surf community in Belmar. We are part of it ourselves. Surfing continues to be an integral part of our local culture and we encourage visitors to come explore our beautiful, family-friendly beaches, where you can surf- or learn how- swim and enjoy the best beach on the Jersey Shore."

There are many police officers in New Jersey - and even more lifeguards - who surf. But our editorial staff is in agreement that nothing in either video justifies the force used by Braswell.

Mahoney is not talking to the press and has a Civil Rights attorney. This is all happening just a few years after a national conversation about police brutality. But the bigger story is that the incident has also sparked a bit of a movement in New Jersey.

“I think this is going to bring a lot of publicity to beach access. Folks are going to rethink, ‘Why do we pay to use the beach at all?’ The Shore towns generate some $40 billion a year. Is there some way that potentially could be used to maintain beaches and pay lifeguards?” asks attorney and activist Andrew Chambarry.

Chambarry, of West Long Branch, grew up in nearby Ocean Township, fishing Deal and Long Branch. It was his spearfishing the jetties that got him involved in beach access issues. He has fought a number of legal cases in Monmouth County, particularly Deal, which is far more shady than Belmar where it comes to access. He was also Chairman of the Surfrider Foundation Jersey Shore Chapter, primarily focused on beach access. But now Surfrider’s National Office is aware of the incident.

“We’ve worked on New Jersey beach access issues for decades- establishing a surf beach in Asbury Park was a big victory. We’ve won cases for beach access in Deal. But Surfrider has never addressed the beach badge issue from the national level. And that’s because we’re so chapter based. We tend to defer to local towns to create a system that makes sense for providing access but also maintaining beaches,” says Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, “In California, Oregon, Florida, beach access if very different from New Jersey from a national Surfrider perspective. I think people in NJ have accepted the badge as part of the history and the culture of going to the beach.”

Nelsen has been with Surfrider since 1998 and the CEO for the last ten years. He was also a lifeguard in Laguna Beach and understands the dynamics of surfers, keeping swimmers safe and tourism revenue.

Chambarry has launched a Change.org petition titled “ Decriminalize New Jersey Beach Access ,” directed at NJ Governor Phil Murphy. According to the petition, Mahoney’s case is not isolated.

“They are a symptom of a broader injustice that plagues New Jersey. Why should the public be forced to pay for access to a natural resource? Why is beach access criminalized in New Jersey?” the petition asks.

He is clear that he is not representing Mahoney nor trying to speculate on the legal matter of the incident. He is more interested in treating the root of the problem. He feels there is a place in New Jersey for beaches that are far less regulated but at the same is in support of lifeguards, especially in places like Belmar.

The petition sources the Beach Fee Statute & Public Trust Document, the same one that Chief Scott referred to in her statement.

The part that Chief Scott did not cite was this one:

“A fee for use of bathing and recreational facilities and safeguards, such as lifeguards, toilets, showers, and parking, at publicly or privately owned beach or waterfront areas, may be charged... However, no fees shall be charged solely for access to or use of tidal waterways and their shores ."

The petition points out further that N.J.A.C. 7:7 states, "Public access to and use of tidal waterways and their shores may not be conditioned upon providing identification or agreeing to any waiver or disclaimer of rights."

That line right there could bring a massive change to New Jersey in future summers. Braswell and Mahoney, each in their own way, may have inadvertently started a new, very meaningful conversation about who can regulate the use of the ocean.

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