HEAD IN THE SAND
Blas won’t open city beaches — but demands L.I. accept NYC residents
A day after Mayor de Blasio said people would “be taken right out of the water” if they tried to go onto city beaches, he whined that Nassau County is being unreasonable by banning Big Apple residents from its shores.
New York City residents should be allowed on Long Island’s beaches, Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday — after being ripped as “irresponsible” by the top Nassau County pol for closing the Big Apple’s own shores amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“This should not be about any ill feeling toward people depending on where they come from,” de Blasio told PIX-11 News.
A day earlier, a rep for Nassau County Executive Laura Curran blasted the mayor’s decision to keep city beaches closed for Memorial Day weekend and at least until mid-June — calling the move “irresponsible and shortsighted” as city dwellers will be sure to flock to open beaches in neighboring counties.
The back-and-forth came as the Nassau legislature prepared a measure to ban noncounty residents from Nickerson Beach on the South Shore. The City Council of nearby Long Beach also voted to ban outsiders from its shores.
Neighboring Suffolk County approved restrictive beach measures on Monday.
Proponents say the move is necessary to keep Long Island beaches from being flooded by city residents amid state-imposed limits on crowd sizes and rules on social distancing rules.
But de Blasio said Tuesday that even with state restrictions, there shouldn’t be a problem with city residents flocking to Long Island shores.
“There are really clear limits on beaches that will be open, and everyone needs to respect that to keep us all healthy and safe in the entire metropolitan area,’’ he said.
De Blasio’s call for Long Island to open its beaches to city residents was a far cry from the hard line he vowed to take this week with anyone who swam on beaches in his own jurisdiction. “Anyone tries to get in the water, they’ll be taken right out of the water,” the mayor said Monday.
A day earlier, he said, “If people don’t get it right, if we start to see a lot of violation of those rules, up will come the fences closing off those beaches.”
After de Blasio’s Tuesday remarks, Curran firmly sided with fellow Nassau legislators and backed closing the shorelines to nonresidents, at least until the city reopens its own beaches.
Jones Beach, on Nassau’s South Shore, is a state park and will still be open to all, although under social-distancing guidelines.
Towns in Nassau that have their own beaches, including Oyster Bay, Hempstead and North Hempstead, will be making their own decisions on whether to allow nonresidents.
City Hall responded defensively to Curran’s keep-out warning, saying, “Opening our beaches puts all our people and progress in jeopardy and would cause dangerous overcrowding on public transportation — a lesser factor in other areas.
“What is important for all of us to focus on is limiting the number of people on beaches, not where they come from.”
State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Nassau) ripped de Blasio’s crashthe-beach sentiment, saying, “It’s a shame Long Island has to turn away city beachgoers to protect its residents and ensure safe beaches, but until the mayor gets his act together and makes his own beaches safe, that’s the only responsible move.”