The story of public shoreline access in Connecticut is no happily-ever-after fairy tale. The struggle to ensure the public’s right to fair and open beach access has a long, unpleasant history in the Nutmeg State. Skirmishes are ongoing; barriers to access still common and victories hard-fought.

We are pleased that one such victory occurred last week. New London Superior Court Judge Kimberly A. Knox ordered Old Lyme’s Miami Beach Association to remove an access-limiting black chain-link fence it erected at the end of the 2016 beach season. Further, the judge ordered the association to stop charging a so-called “clean beach fee” to allow beachgoers to spread their blankets on an 800-foot swath of sand.

Miami Beach Association members have said they decided to erect the fence out of frustration with the unruly and rude behavior of some beachgoers. They testified at trial in July 2019 that some members of the public were swearing, littering, smoking marijuana, trespassing onto private homeowners’ property, urinating in outdoor shower stalls and having sex on the beach.

While we agree such behavior is abhorrent, we applaud Knox’s decision. The stretch of beach in question is adjacent to Sound View Beach and has been considered public since the 1880s. Previous attempts to fence the beach have ended with similar rulings ordering the fences be removed. The current fence has restricted access for three beach seasons and forced countless beachgoers to pony up unwarranted fees.

Kathleen Tracy, a retired school principal who owns a cottage on Hartford Avenue in Sound View and a plaintiff in the case in which Knox ruled, testified that the fence was immoral, unwelcoming and un-beach-like. She also testified that “every generation has to be taught” that no fence is allowed.

Whether the decision to erect a fence was really a case of short memory about what seemed a foregone outcome, or whether it was just a continuation of the same exclusionary attitudes among some shoreline residents that has existed for many decades in Connecticut, is questionable. None of us should forget that Ned Coll and his Revitalization Corps repeatedly brought busloads of poor, inner city children to Connecticut’s shoreline enclaves in the late 1960s and early 1970s to bring public attention to the issue of the state’s mostly off-limits shoreline. At the time, just seven of Connecticut's 253 miles of coastline were fully open to the public, with the rest either in private hands or restricted to town resident use. Coll contended much more of the shoreline should be open to the public.

A 1995 lawsuit taken by a Rutgers law student who had been stopped from jogging on the Greenwich Town Beach finally ended some of the most egregious restrictions. But parking and fees continue to be used to severely limit shoreline access in many places. Fences also continue to be erected. The Shennecossett Beach Club in Groton, for example, also installed a fence limiting access to its property, but was recently ordered by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to remove it.

The recent judge’s ruling in the Old Lyme case should mark the end of attempts to more severely limit beach access there. Rather than paying to erect a fence, hire gatekeepers and continue to pursue as losing lawsuit, it seems the Miami Beach Association could have put its money to more effective use. Ending too-raucous, rude and uncivil behavior might better be accomplished by ensuring there is appropriate beach staff to enforce laws and regulations about proper trash disposal and too-loud or drunken behavior. Local police should take notice.

But fencing off the beach to all because of the inconsiderate actions of some was not the right or, as the court has ruled, legal solution.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.