Surfing not a crime at Long Island and Rockaway Beach 0
Famous last words, but Long Island and Rockaway Beach wave riders may soon be able to peel off their “Surfing Is Not a Crime” bumper stickers.
After handing out a number of tickets against surfers at Montauk Point State Park, Robert Moses State Park and the Rockaways over the years, authorities are quietly phasing out the practice.
Ronald F. Foley, the director of the Eastern Long Island region of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation – the main ticket-writing entity in Montauk – said that his officers had issued just one surfing-related summons in Montauk Point State Park this year.
Officials with the city’s parks department have issued none this year for surfing outside the legal breaks in the Rockaways. Patricia Bertuccio, a spokeswoman for the parks department, said that its officers have generally avoided summonses, choosing instead to direct wayward surfers to stick to the officially designated surfing beaches that were established in 2005 and 2007.
This is probably a mixed blessing for longtime surfers in the area.
On the one hand, they are not being harassed by the police. But if the phase-out holds, it would also seem to signify the growing acceptance of surfing as a local pastime, translating into more crowded breaks and more competition for waves.
“Surfing was not a very popular thing back when there were nothing but big boards and you had to have Hawaiian and West Coast-style waves,’’ Mr. Foley said. “Now, things are different, and the boards you have are different for the waves we have here in the Atlantic, so the interest has grown.’’
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