Rebecca Colucci wasn’t expecting any problems earlier this week when her family put up a post on Facebook advertising $50 reservations for a parking spot and place to lay a towel on the beach next to their restaurant, The Andrea on Atlantic Avenue, down the road from Rhode Island’s most popular public state beach.
The post included photos of the 300-foot wide beach space, with four rows of flags along the shore and mats across the sand.
But quickly the post began lighting up with comments–about 200 as of Friday morning, in addition to posts elsewhere on social media–many from people not so interested in taking up The Andrea on its offer. Instead, they were outraged that a business was taking in revenue off of access to the shoreline. They also suggested what the restaurant is doing is actually illegal.
“Wow,” one commenter said. “I NEVER thought I would see the beach so commercialized! You ruined paradise…You RUINED the beauty of it all.”
“No way this is legal,” someone else said.
Another wrote, “I hope the Andrea gets washed away.”
By the end of the day Thursday, Westerly town police and the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council had visited The Andrea to assess the situation, said Colucci, whose family owns the restaurant and land next to it. She called the situation a misunderstanding by people who don’t understand the rules in Rhode Island, the boundary of her property, and what exactly her business is doing.
“My family has owned the property for 76 years [and] we are well aware of coastal rules and regulations,” she said in an email. “People all become rule setters and advocates on social media. We have a lovely private beach that we let people pre-book [their] parking for the day.”
On a visit to the spot Friday morning, patrons were already arriving and setting up at spots marked off with flags that move up and down for customers to hail wait staff. The final row before the ocean was raked roughly to the area where waves had washed up seaweed.
Colucci said she began offering the service two years ago in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when business regulations were relaxed to allow restaurants like The Andrea to serve alcohol on the beach sand.
She said customers, some of whom have also posted comments online defending the business, like being able to book ahead and be guaranteed a parking spot and beach space. Colucci said the mats are intended to make the beach more accessible to people who use wheelchairs.
One online commenter critical of the business said she was prevented from walking on The Andrea’s beach without a reservation. But Colucci said people are allowed to walk up from the shoreline to patronize the business, and no one is being blocked from the shoreline in front of the sectioned off area.
The CRMC did not provide an update on the case when contacted by email Friday morning. Colucci says the agency took pictures at her business for enforcement staff to evaluate. She said CRMC and the police did not tell her to change anything during their visit and she hasn’t since then.
Colucci did not expect the attention online would affect her business and said her beach spots are already booked out for the next three days. She said her business donates to Westerly non-profits and has considerable goodwill in the community.
Under Rhode Island’s Constitution, the public has the right to access the shoreline. The privileges include walking the shore, collecting seaweed, fishing, and leaving the shore to swim.
But there remains confusion and disagreement among property owners and beachgoers over where property owners can restrict public access and people are legally allowed to be. The ambiguity regularly leads to disagreements like the one at The Andrea.
The state goes by a standard laid out in a 1982 Rhode Island Supreme Court ruling that says the public has the right to be on land up to an 18.6-year mean high tide line. But members of law enforcement and beachgoers say that’s difficult to readily determine and enforce.
At The Andrea, Colucci said staff use the visible seaweed line as their indicator of the boundary for where the general public can legally be.
The Rhode Island House voted unanimously earlier this year to enact new legislation giving people the right to access the shoreline up to six feet landward from the line where seaweed and other debris wash up along the shore, reasoning it would be easier for beachgoers and property owners to locate on a given day. The bill died in the Senate, where the Senate president said it wasn’t a priority.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org
