{"id":3901,"date":"2017-04-14T01:23:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T05:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=3901"},"modified":"2017-04-14T01:23:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T05:23:37","slug":"seaside-park-debates-allowing-dogs-on-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2017\/04\/seaside-park-debates-allowing-dogs-on-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Park Debates Allowing Dogs on Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A dog playing on the beach. (Credit: Kevin Rutherford)<\/p><\/div>\n

Seaside Park Councilwoman Gail Coleman had heard from residents who wondered if allowing dogs on the beach in the off-season was possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

The council discussed the possibility at its workshop meeting, but after sharing anecdotes, a report on enforcement from the police chief, questions of liability, the wording on signs and in an ordinance and other considerations, it decided to take the debate back to a subcommittee for further discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The council\u2019s workshop meeting informally discussed the idea of if to change its current no-dogs policy for the beach and boardwalk. <\/span><\/p>\n

Between the mayor, council members and police chief, the discussion broached a number of possible changes — allowing dogs in the off-season, leashed versus unleashed, what penalties would be needed, the difference between allowing boardwalk versus beach, and even signage.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opinions and ideas were varied, and toward the end of the discussion, Councilwoman <\/span>Faith Liguori<\/span> asked if the council members could each weigh in on if they simply thought dogs on the beach was a good idea in any situation, and then work from there. A straw vote on that was not taken, after Councilman Fritz McHugh, a veterinarian by trade, said his opinion was contingent on the particulars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe shared a lot of experiences and opinions on this subject tonight,\u201d Mayor <\/span>Robert W. Matthies said. \u201cHow about we put it back to the folks on the committee to research this further and get some ideas down in writing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After that, whatever ordinance is drafted would come back to the council for discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Discussion before that included comments on how many people currently bring their dogs on the boardwalk and beach during the off-season already.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Francis Larkin said the current enforcement protocol has officers on the beach, often on quads, approaching folks who have dogs on the beach, and alerting them to the policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome weeks we have 30, other times 40,\u201d Larkin said. At the first citing, police take the name and the contact info of that dog owner, to compare against a list the police use of folks they\u2019ve approached once before, \u201cso we know if this is their first time or if it means a warning or a summons,\u201d Larkin said.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this system, there hasn\u2019t been many repeat offenders, Larkin said. However, \u201cpeople already come from all over to use our beach and boardwalk in the off-season, with their dogs,\u201d said the police chief.<\/span><\/p>\n

The discussion item, according to the workshop agenda, was also supposed to broach the topic of whether to have a bayside dog park in Seaside Park, but the council members agreed to proceed to the remaining agenda items without discussing that topic.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seaside Park Councilwoman Gail Coleman had heard from residents who wondered if allowing dogs on the beach in the off-season was possible. The council discussed the possibility at its workshop meeting, but after sharing anecdotes, a report on enforcement from the police chief, questions of liability, the wording on signs and in an ordinance and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,5],"tags":[1051,549,32],"class_list":["post-3901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-seaside-heights","tag-dogs-on-beach","tag-seaside-park","tag-seaside-park-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/33738170541_cfa864a802_k.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-10V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}