Around 30,000 people visit York Beach each summer. Quebecois surfer Tom Cantin said he comes down here a couple of times a year with his family and friends. Though popular, he said the beach is subdued and pretty lowkey.
"In the fall or spring, it's mostly surfers; so people that are here for the sport, they're not here for the party," said Cantin. "And during the summer, it's families like the crowd you see [on the beach] right now."
The eleven crew members of the York Beach Ocean Rescue are responsible for three beaches: the most popular is Long Sands Beach. Jeffrey Patten has served as the head lifeguard for over 30 years. But last month, Patten submitted a letter of resignation to the town stating he will not return next year unless changes are made regarding public drinking enforcement.
"What we're trying to do is we're trying to get open drinking suppressed here at York," said Patten. "The data on open drinking is the people that open drink, drink more."
He said the reason he's speaking out is to protect his lifeguards. Patten described a water rescue last year where his lieutenant guard was almost knocked off her rescue board by a person whom Patten said was drunk.
"If you're waiting for an incident of alcohol, what you're waiting for one of several things," said Patten. "You're waiting for drowning, you're waiting for someone passed out on the beach, or you're waiting for a fight. You know, and those things put my lifeguards at risk. And that should be the focus of this issue."
Along the New England seacoast, drinking on a public beach is generally against some form of law. However, enforcement depends on what state and even what town you're in.
In New Hampshire, Public drinking isn't formally banned — at least, on the state level. But if you're caught with alcohol on Rye Beach just south of Portsmouth, you could get tagged immediately with a $50 fine. Rye Police Deputy Chief Scott Blaisdell said that's because of a strict ordinance passed by the town.
"It's a no-tolerance policy," said Blaisdell. "We'd go out there with directed patrols. At times we'll have beach patrols, or other times on-duty officers will get out there and do it … if they happen to see people violating the the open container policy, we take action on that."
Maine state law prohibits drinking in public, but it's explicitly not a zero-tolerance policy. Deputy Chief Steven Spofford of the York Police Department said officers can only issue a citation if the person is within 200 feet of a sign outlining the law, or after the officer gives them a warning.
"Basically we tell our officers if they're blatantly openly drinking and it's obvious, we're going to deal with it," Spofford said. "But we're certainly not going down and checking what people have in their cups and stuff like that — unless their actions alert us to either they're being disorderly or doing anything like that."
Spofford said the department tries to be proactive by using reserve officers to patrol the sands. But with the region suffering from a shortage of police personnel, he said it's the second year in a row where the department has no reserve officers.
Instead, Spofford said a couple of officers on bicycles and in vehicles are dispatched to patrol along the beach's main road. Lifeguards are equipped with radios connected to dispatch, who can quickly summon those patrolling officers to respond to any incidents.
Parking along Long Sands is limited to a single lane of street parking, which York town manager Peter Joseph says discourages tailgates and similar drinking events. Because of this, Joseph says York's beaches are mostly used by families where drinking hasn't proven to be a big problem.
"It is a concern, but it's a very low concern compared to a lot of the things that we're seeing just day to day, we're probably seeing more safety violations at the beaches from things like dogs and you know, trips and falls and traffic safety in the crosswalk," Joseph said.
Spofford and the police department said they have not seen an increase evidenced in their reporting.
"Problems dictate where we set our presence, right? You know, if all of a sudden we have an uptick in problems at the beach, sure, we're gonna send more guys down there. We'll put on extra guys. But our statistics aren't showing that," Spofford said.
In the past two summers, Spofford said the department received three calls for service regarding to public drinking — all amounting to warnings. While there's a chance that the informal nature of public drinking may result in underreporting, Spofford said the department at one time experimented with tighter enforcement. Per the town office, this included officers searching people's coolers and cups for alcohol. They soon abandoned the practice after getting negative feedback from residents.
"They didn't really appreciate a police state on the beach like that, while they're with their families enjoying the beach, then quite frankly it and made some of them nervous [and asking] why all these officers are down at the beach," he said.
Some beachgoers also don't believe York Beach has a problem with public drinking. One man, who asked not to be identified, said he has an alcohol use disorder and has been coming to York Beach for over 40 years. He's been sober for decades but said he's okay with those at the beach who aren't.
"If they were selling drugs or, or using drugs on the beach, that might be a different story," he said. "But I don't know, I've been out here for a couple of hours on the beach. I haven't seen a problem."
Law enforcement is not the only way to deal with public drinking at the beach. This year, the town of Scarborough launched a pilot program to hire and train three full-time seasonal park rangers to patrol their unguarded beaches. Besides protecting the piping plover population, Todd Souza, director of community services for Scarborough, said the park rangers use an educational approach when they see any open drinking.
"If they see an open container, they just go educate them on [it like] 'Hey, you got to put that away, please and thank you.' … If your behavior matches the environment, we're trying to create our beaches, then have a good time," Souza said.
Souza said the program has been successful, but it's not cheap with $25,000 being allocated in Scarborough's town budget to cover salary and training. Souza said he does not think using volunteers to do the work would be effective — as staying on message is vital to avoiding confrontation.
"You know how hard it is to keep somebody in the loop that works eight hours a month? They're never in the loop completely, so it's always a chance for a message to be different and then that's where people usually get mad," Souza said.
Because the ocean rescue team does not record drinking incidents, the evidence Patten has put forward about the increase in public drinking is anecdotal — consisting of his expert opinion and photos he's personally taken of beachgoers with alcohol at the beach. Patten has repeatedly cited a drowning in 2019 at York Beach as being alcohol-related, saying the victim had been in a group where others were too inebriated to warn him.
"We viewed that — the Parks and Rec Department [for the town of York] viewed that — as an alcohol-related incident because that drinking took place all day," he said.
However, a copy of the police investigation report obtained from York Town Hall does not support this, making no mention of anyone in the group being intoxicated. Still, Patten said it's only a matter of time before a lifeguard gets hurt.
"It's going to require a recognition. You know, it's like the alcoholic before he can go [to rehab], he's got to realize [he's] got a problem. We're saying, 'You got a problem' [to the town]. And the town is saying 'We don't have a problem.'"
Patten said his lifeguards plan on sending a letter to York's select board to request action.
