By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

Even though beach days are dwindling and most tourists have vacated summer homes, some beachfront property owners at Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport are still concerned about sun worshipers encroaching on private property.

An informational meeting scheduled for Sept. 2 at the Goose Rocks Beach Fire Department with an attorney on hand to answer legal questions about private beach property was ultimately canceled, due to the fire department’s policy not to become involved in politically sensitive issues, said beachfront property owner Parker Dwelley. 

While most members of the group who organized the meeting declined to comment, Dwelley said the meeting was strictly an attempt to provide information.

“Forty years ago, there were no parking stickers or signs, and no contentious issues,” Dwelley said. “With growth of residential housing, motels and condos, there is an impact of larger number of people who use the beach than historically have.”

Dwelley said he lives on the west end of the beach, a section which is privately owned, but said people frequently use his stairs to get off the beach and cross his lawn, which he considers trespassing. He said when he sees people on his property, he lets them know it is private and said no one has used his access on a regular basis.

“There’s a tradition of respect. The beach is partially public, but people need to respect the rights of property owners,” he said. 

Not all beachfront property owners share Dwelley’s concern. Jon Scott, of Minneapolis, Minn., vacations for at least three weeks during the summer at a home on the beach owned by his wife’s family.

He said his relatives think it is “bizarre” that some people are trying to stop public access when people have been walking up and down the beach for more than 100 years. 

“There are people from time to time sitting on the beach in front of my family’s property, but there is plenty of room,” Scott said. “We haven’t ever given it a moments thought, but there are people who do care.”

The Goose Rocks Beach community consists of nearly 100 properties lining the waterfront and many other homes along small side streets, with designated parking by permit only and designated beach access points on sections of King’s Highway.

Maine follows a colonial law adopted from England, stating beachfront property owners own the intertidal zone of the beach, which reaches to the low tide watermark, said Marine Extension Associate Kristen Grant of the Sea Grant Program Grant. 

The law also states private beaches may only be used by the public for fishing, fowling or  navigational purposes, and not for recreation. 

“Sometimes it depends on their deeds. Deeds may not give them to low water mark. That land may be municipally owned, but it certainly has been done that people have blocked access to the beach,” Grant said.

Grant said a 1989 Maine Supreme Judicial Court case ruled the colonial ordinance applied to property privately owned along Moody Beach in Wells set the standard for further issues relating to private beachfront property.

While the Moody Beach case made it all the way to Supreme Court, Kennebunkport Police Chief Joseph Bruni said the residents he met simply wanted to know their rights as property owners and the rights of the public, whether or not they were trespassing.  

“There has been a demographic change and with the turnover in property, the customs seem to be lost. There was a tradition of cooperation. It was understood by previous owners and those who did not own property what appropriate behavior is,” Grant said.