If you were lazily scrolling your social media feed while panting through the July 4th heat wave on your couch, you may have seen a photo of it. If you layered on the sunscreen, brushed off the Arizona-like heat coupled with the Amazonian humidity and hit the Rhody beaches, you might have seen it in real time. Someone, somewhere, paid to have one of those plane-trailered advertising banners flown along the Rhode Island beaches on one of the biggest beach days of the season… the banner read, “The Rhode Island Shore Is Not Private.”
In the short term, the flying of that banner proved that this decades-old form of creative marketing still works, especially if your message resonates with the people. In the longer term, it highlights an ongoing battle between the users of the Rhode Island shoreline and those who believe that the lofty prices they paid for shoreside living should, somehow, render their little slice of heaven exempt from Rhode Island law.
But in the present, that small message represents a big opportunity for all of us that want to continue to enjoy unrestricted access to the saltwater shorelines of our nation’s smallest state.
You may remember the editor’s log I wrote for the November 2025 edition entitled, “The Point of No Return” it was about my friend and his three buddies who were shore togging in Rhode Island, before they were buzzed with a drone, had golf balls hit at them and then were threatened with a loaded gun to leave property that the lunatic didn’t even own! Stories like this, in varying degrees of insanity, are becoming more and more common in the Ocean State and it all centers around shoreline access laws that favor the public rather than the landowner.
The basics are this, “If a person accesses the shoreline legally (through a public access point, right of way, or with permission), the public has the right to use the shoreline, up to 10 feet landward of the recognizable high tide line.”
In the years since this became law, we’ve seen altercations that have become physical, we’ve seen landowners illegally erecting walls and fences blocking access to stretches of beach, we’ve seen public access points unlawfully barricaded and we’ve seen alliances of wealthy landowners trying to find ways to get around the law. In some cases, like the contested Spring Avenue Right of Way at Weekapaug Fire District Beach, deliberations have gone on for years and it’s gotten ugly, because the CRMC seems to have forgotten who they serve.
So why, in spite of all this ugliness, do I consider this reminder in the sky, to be an opportunity for those of us who do not own shoreline property? It’s really quite simple; the fact that this message has gone viral and reminded all of us of our rights, we have the option to (quite literally) draw a line in the sand and pledge to do the right thing from now on.
There have been several instances where beachgoers have purposely trudged onto distant stretches of sand, set up for the day directly behind a shoreline home, with their volleyball nets, blankets and coolers and then sat with a video camera to capture the fallout. While this is technically legal under current law, it’s not a good look for the public. In one video, the landowner called the police and the officer informed the woman, on video, that the beachgoers were within their rights. While this may seem like a ‘gotcha moment’ putting the elitist landowner in her place, that little confrontational twist of purposely setting her up to be humiliated on video is exactly the type of example these resistance groups will use to try and leverage law changes that would affect us all.
Being respectful is always going to be your best course of action. When you walk onto a tough access beach to fish, or whatever else you might want to do there, have a response ready if a confrontation should arise. Know the name of your public access point, or the person who allowed you to cross their property and make sure to cite the law, “recognizable high tide plus 10 feet”. On top of that, do everything in your power to limit your impact on the area, arrive at the parking spot ready to fish, grab your gear and leave quietly. Don’t bring a ton of extra gear that you’ll have to leave up closer to (or on) land that actually is private. Don’t leave trash and maybe even collect some litter left by others to demonstrate that you’re trying to do your part. If a confrontation arises that can’t be diffused, instruct them to call the police and inform them that, “if the police tell me I have to leave, I will leave without protest.”
What we’re trying to do is form a relationship with these people and show them that we (the public) will respect the “high tide plus 10” law and do our best to limit our impact on the area, while also exercising our legal right to use the shoreline. I think most of us would agree that someone setting up for a beach day – purposely in view of our back yard – might bring our blood to a rolling simmer, but if instead, people respected privacy by not flaunting this public access win and used that strip of public land respectfully, many of these altercations would be avoided.
It is possible to stand firm while also showing respect, and I think that’s the stance we all need to take.
