2022-06-30 00:13:13 -0400
To: Governor Phil Murphy
End New Jersey Beach Fees Now
Governor Murphy, free the beach! It is wrong to deny the basic human right to sunbathe and swim to those who can’t afford to pay beach fees. It’s a matter of both social justice and personal liberty. It is time for the state to end the repressive, discriminatory, aggravating, wasteful, and inefficient beach badge system, by removing the financial burden from beach towns and assuming the cost of beach maintenance and lifeguards.
This would amount to a tiny sliver of New Jersey’s almost fifty billion dollar budget. And this year, with $4 billion in unanticipated revenue, and another $3 billion in unspent federal coronavirus relief funds, there is no excuse to continue forcing us to pay to sit on the sand.
The resulting boost in tourism tax dollars might even make the switch to free beaches pay for itself, when combined with the huge savings in salaries of badge sellers and checkers. Workers freed from those unnecessary positions can likely find summer jobs elsewhere, with wages rising and employers scrambling to hire. The time is right to free the beach!
This would amount to a tiny sliver of New Jersey’s almost fifty billion dollar budget. And this year, with $4 billion in unanticipated revenue, and another $3 billion in unspent federal coronavirus relief funds, there is no excuse to continue forcing us to pay to sit on the sand.
The resulting boost in tourism tax dollars might even make the switch to free beaches pay for itself, when combined with the huge savings in salaries of badge sellers and checkers. Workers freed from those unnecessary positions can likely find summer jobs elsewhere, with wages rising and employers scrambling to hire. The time is right to free the beach!
Why is this important?
Beach fees were invented not to raise money, but to keep lower income people from sharing public facilities, and to that end, they work. See the heartbroken looks of the poor as they're turned away for lack of the price of a badge, and know that some wait until the gatekeepers and lifeguards go home so they can swim on dangerous unguarded beaches. That's when most drownings occur. The system is cruel and designed to discriminate, is wasteful and inefficient, and besides that, is an aggravating pain in the neck. Free the beach!
How it will be delivered
In an arranged meeting on the beach with Governor Murphy.