Pandemic is cover for beach exclusion
Recently, Rhode Island officials asked Connecticut and Massachusetts residents to stay away from that state’s beaches while Ocean State officials grapple with outdoor social distancing in the pandemic.
The irony of banning from a beach people from Connecticut — a state with some of the country’s most restrictive beach access rules — would be rich if it wasn’t a symptom of something ugly.
While Rhode Island seeks to regulate who uses its state beaches, some Nutmeg State beach communities (looking at you, Norwalk) have tightened their already-draconian beach restrictions, under the guise of limiting large gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.
The problem with that is that unlike Rhode Island, Connecticut’s out-of-reach beaches is an old story that stretches back multiple generations, says Andrew W. Kahrl, author of “Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Shoreline,” which won last year’s Connecticut Book Award for non-fiction. The pandemic is a cover.
“Localities are using the pandemic as a pretext for reintroducing ordinances that aim to exclude nonresidents,” said Kahrl, a University of Virginia associate professor of history and African American studies. “Oftentimes, public health crisis or other sorts of times of social unrest can be the very moment when some of these exclusionary practices come back with a vengeance.”
This despite a 2001 state Supreme Court case that might have opened the gates. That year, the court ruled that a town ordinance that restricted the 147-acre park, Greenwich Point, to residents and their guests was unconstitutional. Brenden Leydon, now a Stamford lawyer, sued when he was denied a beach pass to enter the park. The case turned, oddly enough, on the First Amendment, and the park as a public forum. An
ACLU of Connecticut press release trumpeted that the decision basically opened all town parks and beaches to non-residents.
Except it didn’t. Over time, shoreline towns have embraced their restrictions under the pretext of either protecting their local environment, or preserving the shoreline for people who pay taxes there.
That last part would make sense except, as Karhl says, historically every shoreline town has cheerfully accepted state and federal funds. American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is monitoring each town as they institute new restrictions that are, in addition to being iffy legally, are bad public policy, said David McGuire, the organization’s executive director.
“We’re urging towns to create policies in consultation with medical experts,” said McGuire. “Set a capacity limit of how many people can be on a beach, and instead of having town employees check for people’s identification, have a first-come, first-serve system. We’re urging towns to take up a policy grounded in science, not fear and politics.”
You know where this is heading, don’t you? Local, exclusive beaches generally reflect local, exclusive zoning laws, and in a time when the pandemic has unearthed so much of our societal inequality, there sit our segregated cities and villages, exposed and entrenched in systemic racism.
Just a few days after a Black Lives Matter march in town, wealthy Weston, a town of just over 10,000 souls, decided to keep embracing single-family homes with yards no smaller than two acres. The state counts just seven affordable housing units in town, but according to a strategic plan, residents oppose plastic bags, so there’s that. And besides, according to the plan, at least they’re more affordable than nearby Westport.
It really isn’t fair to single out Weston or Westport. Connecticut has an affordability problem that may be reflected in its shoreline residents’ rabid restriction of the beaches, but extends statewide.
Connecticut has the country’s ninth-most expensive housing market, according to Partnership for Strong Communities, a Hartford-based advocacy organization, and some towns have spent no small amount of effort fighting affordable housing initiatives within their boundaries.
“Many of these very same communities historically and continue to practice exclusion in their housing market, with housing markets that are unaffordable in effect that means the shoreline is off-limits to working families,” said Kahrl.
Kahrl has long been interested in issues of race and equality in recreation and public space. In his research, he stumbled upon Connecticut’s tattered history of restricting its beaches. Ned Coll, who drew the connection between racial inequality and exclusionary beach policies, was a Hartford firebrand in the ’60s and ’70s who brought children down from Hartford to wade in Connecticut’s exclusive waters. Coll, a complicated man whom Kahrl captured faithfully, has mostly faded from activism, though he’s still living in the Hartford area.
“I will say the issues that Ned Coll raised remain with us today,” said Kahrl. “And I think we need to recognize that making sure public space is open to the entire public is an important measure toward building a more equal and inclusive society.
“As a scholar and a citizen,” said Kahrl, “I believe racism and the history of racial injustice are the most important themes in American history. You can’t understand history without understanding AfricanAmerican history. It’s not an add-on. It is the story.”
For now, McGuire said that while the state ACLU monitors town policies, the organization will also watch that whatever pandemic-inspired policies don’t linger longer than does the virus.