No ifs, ands, or buts—end of line for tiki huts
Council also considering ban on sailboats and
personal watercrafts
FARRAH MAFFAI Required to be gone by Monday, Andrew Mencinsky’s hut is already being stripped down. At right, Mencinsky stands inside the tiki hut he built three years ago.
SEA BRIGHT — Sitting in his tiki hut on the beach, Councilman Andrew Mencinsky wonders why other members of the Borough Council are so opposed to the structure.
He’s even more incredulous that they are now drawing a bead on sailboats and motorized personal watercrafts that are left on the beach.
And when Councilwoman Maria Fernandes suggested that perhaps food shouldn’t be allowed on the beach, he bordered on disbelief.
"No swimming will be next," he predicted.
"We can’t say, ‘No fun,’" he went on. "I will argue that the beach is there for the public. The beach is there to recreate."
Mencinsky’s ruminations were prompted by the Borough Council’s decision at its meeting July 2 to send letters to the three private individuals to dismantle by July 15 the tiki huts they have built or are building on the beach, or the huts will be removed by Department of Public Works employees.
That decision, Mencinsky believes, was politically inspired by the three Democrats on the council, particularly Fernandes and Councilwoman Elizabeth Smith, the council president, both of whom deny it.
Mencinsky, who is unaffiliated with any political party, had volunteered to take his tiki hut down before the council voted to mail out the notices, after other residents complained about the tiki huts on the beach.
But rather than remove them, Mencinsky would like to see an ordinance adopted to regulate them so as to eliminate the cause for the complaints.
"They could be strictly monitored in what materials are used and how large and tall they are," he reasoned.
Mencinsky built his tiki hut from indigenous driftwood he found on the beach. For the roof, he used palm fronds obtained from beach clubs and restaurants in town at the end of the summer season when the owners let their palm trees die.
He put it up in 1999 and said he figures he’s cleared the beach of 5,000 pounds of debris over time as he swept over the sand looking for tiki hut timber.
Mencinsky, who lives at 610 Ocean Ave., is disdainful of another tiki hut slightly to the south of his built of store-bought lumber, although he hesitates to publicly criticize it. He said another going up to the north looks promising.
The letters from Borough Clerk Maryann M. Smeltzer ordering the tiki huts removed were sent out to Mencinsky and to Michael J. Stap of 592 Ocean Ave. and Alfonso J. Lambiase of 650 Ocean Ave. Mencinsky voted along with all the other council members to ask that they be dismantled.
No letter was sent to Donovan’s Reef in the downtown district, which has a tiki hut bar, or to any of the beach clubs with tiki huts, because — according to Mayor Gregory Harquail — those beaches are private and not subject to borough control. He said Donovan’s Reef ran afoul of the state Department of Environmental Protection when it put down a concrete floor for its tiki hut, suggesting a permanent structure, and was ordered by DEP to remove it.
Bill Friedel of Ocean Avenue, one of the borough residents who complained about the tiki huts on the beach, said his objection to them is that they have been built on a public beach.
It is a beach that has been rebuilt at considerable public expense under a joint federal-state-local beach replenishment program authorized by Congress.
"Neither I nor anyone else has the right to construct something on public land — unless Sea Bright itself would do it — such as outhouses or tiki huts or whatever," Friedel said. "But individual people can’t do that. They can’t set up barriers. They have set up fencing and Christmas trees and such to create an impression of boundary as if it’s their land, which it isn’t.
"So the objection is that it is public land, and individual people cannot use public land for their own purpose," he said.
Mencinsky, who set out Christmas trees on the beach in front of his home to catch the sand and build a dune, emphasized that his tiki hut is open for use by anyone who passes by. Named Windansea after a longstanding tiki hut in La Jolla, Calif., which inspired him to build his, it has a bench swing, hanging basket chairs, lawn chairs set in the sand and a table made of driftwood.
Mencinsky also keeps a clipboard in it with petitions to the mayor and Borough Council made up by his wife, Lori Tresente, to allow tiki huts. He said he’s gathered well over 200 signatures on the petitions, at least 50 of them from Sea Bright residents. He maintained that his tiki hut fits the guidelines of the borough ordinance for what development is allowed on the beach.
"Development is prohibited on beaches except for development that has no prudent or feasible alternative in any area other than a beach, and that will not cause significant adverse long-term impacts on the natural functioning of the beach and dune system…," the ordinance reads.
"I could argue very easily that a tiki hut is something you find on the beach," he said. "I mean, you don’t find tiki huts in Kansas. You find them in Tahiti."
Several signers of his petitions left comments appreciating its presence.
"My kids walk to the tiki hut every day. They love it," one read. "Please don’t take it down."
"This is the coolest place I’ve ever been," said another. "I don’t know why you’d want to tear it down. It doesn’t bother anyone and it doesn’t take up much space. Please don’t tear it down."
And a New Yorker had this to say: "As I was walking toward the ocean, the view of the tiki hut and clever destination post and sailboats in the background was the most beautiful, serene vision of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s scenes like these that truly make the Jersey Coast one of the best in the world."
Mencinsky said a number of people have spoken to him directly to tell him how much they liked the tiki hut and the shade it provides from the summer sun. He contended the move to drive tiki huts off the beach was politically motivated, directed at him by the Democrats on the council.
"Liz and Maria obviously orchestrated people coming in to complain," he asserted.
Both Smith and Fernandes said it was ridiculous to suggest they had any political motivation in wanting his and the other tiki huts removed.
"I really take offense when people throw the political card out," Fernandes said. "This is not political. This is about what is right and what is wrong. It has nothing to do with politics.
"There are neighbors — his own neighbors — who don’t like it," she added. "They feel it doesn’t belong there, that the beach belongs to everyone."
Fernandes pointed out, as did Smith, that no one said anything to him about his tiki hut during the election campaign last fall when Mencinsky won his seat on the council, even when a story on it was splashed on the front page of the Hub.
"Had there been a desire to attack him politically, we had a perfect opportunity when he was running," Smith said, also noting the story in the Hub. "If we wanted to make a political attack, we would have done so when we could have benefited politically. We have nothing to gain by a political attack. He has a three-year term in front of him."
Smith said that after the election, she had breakfast with Councilman Charles Galloway—who was also elected for the first time and who, like Mencinsky, is unaffiliated—to talk about how they could work together.
She said she urged Galloway to tell Mencinsky to make sure he’s gone through all the proper processes and had any needed permits for his tiki hut on the beach.
"We’re trying to do the right thing; abide by the law." Smith explained. "But it doesn’t suit his personal bias, so he accuses us of being politically motivated.
"The interest in Andrew’s hut is that he’s laying claim to public property," she said. "He and others are marking off public property for their own use."
"It’s a very simple issue of it’s the law," Fernandes concurred. "Unfortunately, I think Andrew may think that because he’s a councilman, he doesn’t have to obey it."
Councilman William Gelfound, the third Democrat, dashed any hope of legalizing the tiki huts at the meeting when the letter was authorized.
"We are not going to do tiki huts," he said. "These things are totally illegal."
The mayor, who is unaffiliated, supported the removal of the tiki huts but has taken a go-slow approach to banning boats from the beach.
"Personally, I think that if someone wants to bring a Hobie Cat or Sunfish on the beach, why not?" Harquail said.
Harquail said there are only a few sailboats, kayaks or powered skis that are kept on the beach, and "if it doesn’t get out of hand," the town can live with that.
"Like the tiki huts — one was cute and enjoyable, then the next one came and it was made of wood from the lumber yard, and the owner fenced off the area and said, ‘It’s my spot.’ At some point it has to come to an end," the mayor added.
"If it gets out of hand and interferes with others’ rights to the public beach, it has to go," he said.