On R.I.’s south shore, opening town beaches gets down to nitty-gritty

Correction: Visitors to state and town beaches will not be required to wear cloth face coverings if they can consistently stay at least six feet apart from those in other groups. All beachgoers are asked to bring face coverings to the beach and wear them in any crowded area, such as bathrooms, concessions or parking lots. An earlier version of this story did not accurately describe the policy. 

Remember before, when the things that triggered fear at the beach were a fin circling, a stomach cramp from swimming too soon after eating, or maybe sunburn, bullies, creeps or undertow?

This year, danger at the beach is invisible and so much deadlier.

Now, sitting downwind and within six feet of someone who sneezes, or touching a door handle last touched by someone who doesn’t know they have the virus, or talking with someone not wearing a face mask can land you in a medically induced coma, and, if all turns out well weeks later, a wheelchair for your ride home from the hospital.

Gov. Gina Raimondo has been careful to open only two state beaches, to test whether infection rates rise. Scarborough in Narragansett and East Matunuck in South Kingstown will open Monday, free of charge, but they will have no lifeguards, no concessions, no changing rooms or showers.

Towns have to meet strict requirements before opening a town beach. They’re tightening the rules for proving residency and, in some cases, allowing only residents to buy season passes. Nonresidents have to buy day passes.

Towns will have to clean their beach facilities more frequently each day; require everyone to wear a mask in crowded areas such as bathrooms, concessions or parking lots; and enforce a limit of five people in a group and a distance of six feet between each group’s beach blankets and umbrellas.

Nobody wants a coronavirus carrier who doesn’t know it, who hasn’t served two weeks of self-quarantine upon entering Rhode Island and who doesn’t wear a face mask. Seeing a spike in coronavirus cases in the saltwater beach towns would set back the progress that has come at so high a price to so many Rhode Islanders.

Only Westerly has announced it will open its town beaches in time for Memorial Day weekend, all three of them. Town Manager Mark Rooney said they’ll open Friday.

At the same time, the executive director of the Misquamicut Business Association, which represents about 40 businesses along a three-mile stretch with half-mile Misquamicut State Beach in the middle, is asking Raimondo to open that beach this weekend, or at least install trash containers and portable toilets and allow cars to park in the giant state lots.

“People are going to come,” said Caswell Cooke, executive director of the business association. “You can’t stop them.” With 2,800 parking spaces at the state beach shut down, those cars will flood the village.

Cooke said that, with the state beach closed, his association will be picking up trash strewn along Atlantic Avenue for the half-mile of the state beach parking.

He suggested that the governor might hope for rain this weekend. “By not opening that beach, it’s going to be a public safety hazard,” he said.

Rooney said people from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida own second homes in Westerly, and they can get parking stickers for Wuskenau Town Beach and Larkin Road for access to East Beach, but they can’t get passes for Westerly Town Beach.

The problem is that it’s impossible to know if a carload has been here two weeks or more for quarantine, he said. “Unless we see them cross the river, we don’t know.”

The police approach will be officer discretion. “We’re going to seek compliance, not confrontation,” Rooney said.

Saltwater beach towns in South County — Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown, Narragansett and North Kingstown, are following directives from the governor that are outlined and detailed in ReOpeningRI.com.

Towns are required to meet the new beach standards, Narragansett Town Manager James Tierney said. In Narragansett as in the other towns, the price of beach passes has not gone up, but residency rules have tightened. As issues arise, the town will have to solve them case by case, he and Narragansett Parks and Recreation Director Steve Wright said.

Tierney promised that Narragansett Town Beach will open, but he wouldn’t say when. It will be announced on the town website and social media.

The beach will have the same hours, 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., but unlike other years when the parking attendants left at 5 p.m., this year they will stay on duty until 8, turning away cars from elsewhere. Narragansett Town Beach has been widely perceived as a free beach after 5 p.m., but that will change this year.

Narragansett beachgoers will see signs instructing them about the rules. “Please do your part to stay six feet apart,” is one, Wright said, and another is that face coverings must be worn in the pavilion, restrooms, concession areas, when walking among others, but not in the water. Also, “If you’re not feeling well, please stay home.”

North Kingstown Town Manager A. Ralph Mollis said his town’s beach is opening this weekend, but he didn’t say which day.

South Kingstown, like most towns, will open its town beach on weekends only until mid-June.

In Charlestown, people who walk to a town beach can enjoy it for free.

The towns are selling beach passes and parking stickers at the beach, through the mail or online. Residents who order and pay online are asked to call ahead, then wait at the curb for someone to bring them out.

Each town’s website has details about prices, hours, locations and who’s eligible.

“Everybody’s adapting,” said Terry Murphy, South Kingstown’s director of leisure services. “We’ve found everybody to be very patient and understanding.”

It could be worse. Some “famous popular tourist places,” she said, are selling beach reservations. Beachgoers turn up at a specified time and get an assigned spot.

— dnaylor@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7411

On Twitter: @donita22