Amen, tsutcli. I don't care if people want to rent chairs, but those of us who don't have the same right to access and enjoy the beach.
Beach Chair vendor moved my chairs
- Thread starter Easternlake lady
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As a long time local, I know when to go to the beach and that doesn't include July. Most other months we enjoy the sunsets. Or our parks. Or Grayton Beach. Grayton has always had beach chair vendors but there seems to be far more now. Resorts such as Rosemary Beach or Seaside always have set ups, that's expected.
However, our public beach accesses are for everyone and deserve protection from vendors taking them over. Seems like they should be restricted far more than the new ordinance permits.
However, our public beach accesses are for everyone and deserve protection from vendors taking them over. Seems like they should be restricted far more than the new ordinance permits.
actually you have MORE rights on public beaches. Check the rules and regs.
When I used to write for the Sun, I remember this being an issue in Destin. It has gotten worse in Destin in the past 10 years and has migrated East. I knew this was coming. It's my belief that it's actually worsened since the new 'rules' were passed. As a resident and having had some interaction with code enforcement recently, I was very impressed with them and grateful for their time and attention to my concerns. However, there's a serious enforcement issue when it comes to the beaches IMO.
I too am a lifelong resident of Walton County. In 48 years of sitting on the beach, I have personally never rented a beach chair. I carry my chair and beach bag to the beach, read my book, enjoy the sun and surf and bother no one. My particular beach access has very very few beach company setups so I haven't had any bad experiences personally, but I do sympathize with those of you who have. However, I would like to speak for the other side. My son is one of those "beach chair guys". He is 16, an honor student, an athlete, and a local kid who is glad to have a summer job. He works 7 days a week, from 6:00 until 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 until 7:00 p.m. He leaves home at 5:30 in the morning. Despite what some people think, the reason they start so early in the morning is because of the extreme heat. By the time he is done setting up about 40 sets at 9 am, he is drenched with sweat and exhausted. It's hard work but it pays decent and allows him to participate in summer sports with his school in the middle of the day. I assure you he would not purposely set up chairs that weren't going to be rented, just for the fun of it. He sets up the number his boss tells him to, based on experience of how many they will need that day of the week. In Two summers, he has only had a 2 problems, but they were pretty ugly as adult women and men cussed at him, threw his chairs, and accused him of ruining their beach day. In both cases, other adults on the beach came to his defense. In one case, it turned out that a husband had told his wife he had set up their personal chairs and the wife was accusing my son of moving them, when in fact the husband came down and told his wife he had not gotten around to setting them up. I would encourage you to call the owners if you are unhappy, not attack the young kids working. These are our local kids. As a true walton county resident, I am thankful that my son can work on the same beaches he grew up on. I too complain about tourists, but the hospitality industry is what makes it possible for our local kids to stay local.
Some of the guys are local. Many are college students looking to spend time on the beach. Many have the attitude that they own the beach. A big problem is competition - we used to have a reasonable number of companies that cooperated and shared. Now like many other services - the field has gotten too crowded.
I'm glad to hear your son is benefiting from tourism. It starts from the top - the owners of the companies have to train and treat people the right way.
Of course he does what his boss says....but a lot of these guys ( I have seen with my eyes daily)
Tell employees to setup X number of chairs...reason your son works early or not at all, is he MUST get as many front row setups as possible as he moves from beach to beach. Then guess what?, after your son goes to workout ( applause for that, this is not his problem) his boss hovers over his setups all day checking to see who takes his bait and sits down on the front row, even if these setups sit empty from 6:00AM til say 12:30pm when his hook is set.....just sayin
I would say most, if not all, of those college kids who come back, are home from college for the summer, living with their parents. They are graduates of Walton County schools, and their parents live here. The money is good, but not nearly good enough for a college student from somewhere else to rent a place in sowal for 2 months, just so they can "spend time on the beach". All of my son's friends come home from college for the summer to do beach chairs, and I expect he will too. The point I was trying to make in my original comment was these are just local kids, working hard, who sometimes get treated pretty bad by fellow local.