Beach Access Reopened By Jenkinson's, Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Says

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, NJ — Jenkinson's has removed the locks on three of its beach gates, allowing significant access to its beaches for the first time in nearly a month.

Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra announced the reopening in a post on Facebook Saturday, saying the main pavilion gate, inlet pavilion gate and Forman Avenue access points were open.

The reopening comes 10 days after the owners of Jenkinson's Pavilion were warned by the state Department of Environmental Protection that its padlocked gates were a violation of the conditions of its Coastal Area Facility Review Act permit.

That DEP letter, dated Sept. 19, came five days after the NJDEP issued a violation letter to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association over its closure of its beach access on Sunday mornings during the summer.

Jenkinson's Pavilion first locked the gates and its employees shooed people away on Sept. 6, after lifeguard protection ceased for the summer, leaving the only open access at the borough-owned Maryland Avenue beach.

Except for an email to Patch saying one gate was open on Sept. 5, the company has not responded to repeated requests for comment about the closures, the DEP letter, or the reopening of one gateon Sept. 25.

The company also has not commented on a lawsuit filed in 2021 by the family of a man who drowned in the surf at an unguarded beach in September 2020. The family of Anthony Timpanaro, who was 69, alleges Jenkinson's failed to provide enough warnings of the dangerous surf conditions and says the company should have shut down all beach access.

Kanitra in early September speculated the lawsuit was the reason Jenkinson's shut down access as summer temperatures and sunny days continued to draw beach visitors and as people continued to ignore warnings about dangerous rip currents, leading to multiple beach rescues in towns up and down the Jersey Shore.

The repeated incidents of people needing to be pulled from the water while swimming where there were no lifeguards led to Seaside Heights and Toms River warning they would ticket swimmers, only Jenkinson's closed its access.

"The Permittee cannot limit vertical or horizontal public access to any dry sand area covered under this permit nor interfere with the public's right to free use of the dry sand for intermittent recreational purposes connected with the ocean and wet sand," the letter from Robert H. Clark, region supervisor of the Bureau of Coastal and Land Use Compliance and Enforcement, said. "If a permittee undertakes any regulated activity authorized under a coastal permit, such action shall constitute the permittee's acceptance of the permit in its entirety as well as the permittee's agreement to abide by the permit and all conditions therein."