Tempers Flaring

The NationNews is today reporting that "tempers flared" yesterday at a meeting between beach vendors and the National Conservation Commission and other [government] officials. Among other issues discussed, mention was made of "the beach chair vending policy – with a view to determining capacity on the beaches." At least in the online edition of the paper, no mention was made of narrowing beaches being a causal factor of the concerns so we are left to fill in the gaps ourselves.

In the NationNews photo linked above we see a Mullins Beach jet ski operator "having a word with Deputy Chief Environmental Health Officer." On January 3 of this year this blog also carried a photo [a section of which is blown up below] in which this same jet ski operator appears in his white floppy hat and checkered shorts (click top of photo to enlarge) in his working environment - Mullins Beach.


In this photo one can clearly see why capacity concerns over beach chairs is a big problem on narrowing west coast beaches, in particular Mullins Beach. The problem, in this blogger's humble opinion, isn't so much the number of chairs as it is little or no sandy beach on which to place them. For years this blog has been calling for the re-nourishment of the beaches in the Mullins area and the undoing of some of man-made causes of the accelerated erosion in the area like the groynes at St. Peter's Bay and the seawall at The Great House. Until these calls are answered the temper flaring on the part of those who work on the beach will only get worse and a silly little free government T-shirt is not going to cool things down.

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