As summer nears, popular beach remains blocked amid land battle

Large sections of the popular beach in Port Dover remain closed to the public while the families that own the land negotiate a new lease agreement with the local government.

Norfolk County politician Adam Veri said he sympathizes with the property owners who closed the beach in the lakeside Southwestern Ontario town in late April over concerns about upkeep, safety and liability.

“Put it this way – we have 200,000 bikers at Friday the 13th, and they leave less of a mess than a weekend at the beach,” Veri said, echoing complaints from the owners of FW Knechtel Foods Limited and Buck’s cottage park that visitors use the beach as a dumping ground.

The popular beach is currently off-limits save for a 66-foot strip of county property extending from the foot of Walker Street to Lake Erie. But beachgoers have not been met with security guards telling them to leave, while part of the beach closest to the nearby Knechtel-owned restaurant has been sectioned off for patio tables.

Veri and Al Meneses, Norfolk County’s top bureaucrat, are in talks with the Knechtel and Buck families over what measures would have to be put in place to formally reopen the beach, which for decades has attracted tens of thousands of visitors every summer.

Liability insurance is a sticking point, but not the only one, Veri said.

The owners also want to see stepped-up garbage collection and more enforcement of county bylaws, with regular patrols and enhanced crowd-control measures.

“What they don’t want is a 20-by-20 tent with four carloads of people coming with furniture and crockpots and barbecues, and digging themselves a latrine and burying their garbage and diapers,” Veri said.

As crowds swell, Veri said cottagers and business owners complain of intoxication and drug use among belligerent beachgoers who set up large tents that block sightlines.

“It’s wild,” Veri said. “The (owners) want the enforcement (and) controlled entry points to get rid of that.”

The “majority” of beachgoers don’t dine or shop locally, he added. They leave their garbage on the sand and go home without spending a dime in town.

“The main beach users now are using the free beach as if it were a public park. They’re not spending money,” Veri said.

Historically, the county has leased the beach for a nominal fee and paid for garbage removal and clearing the sand of seaweed and trash. But that working arrangement was interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic and no lease was formalized this year.

“We want the beaches to be a driver for tourism,” Veri said. “A lot of the stuff that (the owners) are asking for is not new. It’s to go back to what it was.”

Norfolk Mayor Amy Martin said she is “optimistic” a new lease can be negotiated.

“The best outcome is we find a mutually beneficial agreement for the landowners and the county so the beach is open for everyone to continue to use,” Martin said. “We need to have a long-term, ironclad agreement where we’re going to be able to tell people that the beach is open, not just for this year but for many years.”

Keeping the beach open dovetails with the county’s aim of preserving waterfront access throughout Norfolk, Martin added.

“There’s an aspect of the beach and the water that belongs to all of us,” she said. “Whether the access to get to it is publicly owned is up for debate, but it’s an important asset and it’s integral to the history and heritage of our community.”

As for whether families can confidently take a day trip to the Dover beach this summer, Veri said visitors who behave themselves are unlikely to have any issues.

“Everybody wants people to come. What (the beach owners) don’t want is the type of traffic they’re getting now,” he said. “They want safe, respectful use of their property.”

JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.