Rehoboth Beach noise crackdown blindsides visitors
Several visitors to Rehoboth Beach over the weekend said they had no idea the town changed its nuisance-noise law in the offseason, so they were taken aback by encounters with police officers citing and enforcing the law.
Their surprise may explain why Rehoboth elected officials are now getting an earful about the noise law, along with complaints that police aggressively inspected people at a traditionally gay beach in south Rehoboth for evidence of smoking and drinking on the sand.
"I personally had one officer come up to our group of people. He demanded to search our bag because there were accusations of people drinking on the beach," said a Washington, D.C., resident in his late 20s who visited Rehoboth for Memorial Day weekend. "He took a water bottle out of my bag, opened it, smelled it to see if there was any alcohol in it – there wasn't – and handed it back."
The man, who asked not to be named because of fears his employer would be upset about his speaking out on the topic, said he saw two officers going from beach blanket to beach blanket on Saturday at the beach at Queen Street, doing similar inspections. It's a level of police activity he had not witnessed during his past four summers of Rehoboth visits.
"I've never seen police go through and go from one group to another to another. I've never seen multiple officers on the beach," the man said Wednesday.
Enforcement of beach behavior over the Memorial Day weekend, and of a new noise ordinance that allows police to issue citations for any "plainly audible" sound that disturbs others in residential areas, was criticized as overbearing by several people in letters sent to Rehoboth Beach's mayor, commissioners and the press.
Rehoboth Beach Police Chief Keith Banks said officers responded to several noise complaints, but only issued a citation in one case – to a renter on New Castle Street whose home drew noise complaints on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
At the Queen Street beach, also known as Poodle Beach, police issued eight citations for public drinking and urination on Saturday, Banks said.
The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper in Washington, D.C., reported Wednesday that doctors, lawyers and federal government officials were among those who balked at the enforcement actions.
"If we continue to feel persecuted, we could easily pull every gay dollar from your city," Lee Whitman, a D.C. resident and Rehoboth summer visitor, said in a letter to Rehoboth officials, according to the Blade.
Kathy McGuiness, a Rehoboth Beach commissioner, said more could have been done to educate summer tourists about the updated noise ordinance.
"If folks were not aware, maybe we could have done a better job," McGuiness said Wednesday. "This is a newly passed, new and improved ordinance. We have to give it time. We can't rush to judgment on one of the busiest weekends of the year."
Colin Patrick Corcoran, 34, a New Yorker spending his first summer weekend in Rehoboth, told The News Journal he believed the town has a gay-friendly reputation. "I haven't completely lost that feeling, but this little piece of the weekend was kind of surprising," he said in an interview Wednesday.
Corcoran said he was a guest at two house parties on Saturday where, he believed, the hosts were keeping noise to a minimum by not playing music outdoors and controlling the size of the crowd. But both parties, he said, were quashed when police arrived because neighbors had called in noise complaints.
An April change to Rehoboth's ordinance lets police issue warnings, citations and fines for noise in residential zones without having to prove a sound's loudness with a decibel meter.
"This is more subjective, but it's more expedient," town commissioner Stan Mills said of the change when it passed in April. The meters must still be used in commercial districts for noise enforcement.
"Everybody was clothed and behaving well and not making too much noise. All of a sudden, everybody had to go inside. And it was 4:30 in the afternoon," Corcoran said. "I've been to some pretty out-of-control beach party situations. This was not that. ... It was this overall feeling within the gay community that all of these parties were being targeted and shut down."
Thomas McGlone, a year-round Rehoboth resident who's made unsuccessful attempts to win elected office in town, said Rehoboth did a poor job of informing summer visitors the rules about noisy neighborhoods had changed. Property owners got a newsletter that mentioned the new law briefly, he said, but there was no easy way for renters or casual visitors to know about it.
The town's website does not call any special attention to the new law.
McGlone said he supported the new "plainly audible" standard for noise enforcement, but said police need to be very judicious in enforcing it.
"Am I going to call the police on my 10 neighbors next door because they're having a few beers in the afternoon and playing cornhole with their kids?" McGlone said. "Some people will, and according to the law they passed, it's a violation."
Banks, in interviews, said it's not at all true that police were intent on enforcing the laws more tightly for gay visitors.
"I take pride in the police department and the city for everyone getting along," Banks told The News Journal. "We're not targeting anyone."
In an interview with the Blade, Banks said: "I'm saddened to hear that some people want to say that it is a gay issue. That's not what we do here at Rehoboth Beach. We want all people here."
McGuiness, the town commissioner, said she believed the police had not been overbearing in their enforcement.
"The police were very visitor-friendly and renter-friendly, to my knowledge," McGuiness said. "To have one noise citation the entire weekend, that's pretty remarkable."
Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ orjfisher@delawareonline.com.