"People are just frustrated, and they want to be able to go to the beach," said an ecology professor at California State University Channel Islands.
SAN DIEGO - Not far from where protesters gathered recently to call for an end to stay-at-home orders, Megan Haber toweled off after a Saturday morning dip in brisk, 62-degree water.San Diego city beaches reopened Monday and, even with the boardwalk closed and sand off limits for congregating and sunbathing, people flocked to the tide line in Pacific Beach to enjoy the first weekend since March that they could access the shoreline.
Limiting access to California's most prized resource, the coastline, during the coronavirus pandemic has drawn the ire of beachgoers, activists and local officials. Coastal law and policy experts seem to agree that Newsom has the right to shut down beaches for a global pandemic. But some have a problem with uneven access.
But at some beaches in California, officials have used parking to try to regulate crowds. One effect is that people who live at the coast have the cherished resource all to themselves. "Closing beaches to the public clearly goes against the intention of the California Coastal Act," said Shelley Luce, CEO of the environmental group Heal the Bay. But she said the pandemic is one of those circumstances that would qualify as a loophole."That’s not an unfettered public right of access," he said.
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