Despite vociferous protests from a dozen residents, Indian River Shores is pushing ahead with closing nighttime public access to the beach at the end of Beachcomber Lane by installing a gate.
Town Manager Jim Harpring said the project to install the gate to close beach access between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily will now be the subject of an engineering study to make sure the gate will be “esthetically pleasing,” after which it will be put out for bids to contractors.
Harpring said there is no target date for the completion of the project at this time, but he added his best estimate is that it will happen sometime during 2026.
Meanwhile, a group of residents, most of them homeowners along Beachcomber Lane, has not given up efforts to block the project. In advance of the town council meeting last Thursday, the group had circulated flyers around the town asking people to show up in numbers for the council meeting and show their opposition.
“We don’t want gates at the Beachcomber access,” the flyer said. “This is an extreme solution to a rarely occurring problem, an unwanted and unnecessary cost to taxpayers.”
The protesters say insufficient notice was given of the town’s intent to close nighttime public beach access with a gate and threaten to file freedom of information (FOIA) requests for public records to prove what they say are violations of Florida’s Sunshine Act regarding the project.
“Go ahead and file your requests,” said a clearly exasperated Mayor Brian Foley after lengthy discussions. “Our town attorney will reply to your requests. But any suggestion that this was some middle-of-the-night measure that we snuck through is just not true.”
Foley said ample public notice had been provided in public documents as far back as July of this year in a budget amendment.
“You’re making a big mistake here,” said Earl Simpson, one of the local residents who showed up to protest the plans. “People should have been provided with notice. We didn’t get a chance to weigh in earlier and we’re upset. This needs to be reversed.”
Other residents explained they want to be able to take their families to the beach in the evening and are in the habit of viewing nighttime space launches from the Kenney Space Center from the public beach. “Don’t tell me we can no longer see the launches,” one woman said.
Private developments on both sides of Beachcomber Lane have their own beach access ramps and will not be affected by the planned gate to restrict nighttime access to the public beach.
No vote was taken during the town council meeting on the plan because none was necessary. It was simply an “administrative action” that came up in Harpring’s town manager’s report to the council.
Harpring explained that the town already has an ordinance on the books restricting public beach access between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., so the installation of the gate is simply a mechanism to enforce that ordinance. “It’s like you already have an ordinance on the books that the speed limit on a certain road is 35 mph,” Harpring explained. “Then you simply put up the signs saying so. You don’t need to pass a new ordinance for that.”
Members of the town’s public safety department are supposed to close the gate at night and reopen it in the morning, similar to the way they do it now at the pubic beach parking area by the Tracking Station beach behind the CVS pharmacy, but the protesters say there is a potential for access being denied during open hours when police are responding to calls.
The town management, backed by the town council, says the gate to restrict nighttime access to the public beach is necessary for security reasons. Harpring said security problems have increased along with the gradual growth of the population of the town. The residents counter that the gate will simply invite more violations with gate jumping and vandalism.
The resident protesters say they have never seen any record of complaints about nighttime access. “Where are they, if that’s what you give as the reason for doing this? Who are these people?” asked one resident.
Another resident said that even if there had been some complaints, it is not fair that the residents are now being punished for the misdeeds of some by losing their beach access.
The main discussion on restricting beach access occurred during the agenda item on the town manager’s report, but the issue came up again at the end of the town council meeting during the public comment period.
“Does anyone else have any comment on any other topic, NOT the Beachcomber Lane gate?” Mayor Foley asked.
Despite his admonition, all further commenters appearing at the lectern still brought up their opposition to the nighttime gate in other ways.
“I’ll give you two minutes,” a clearly impatient Foley told one questioner who brought up the public records issue.
