TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen today released the 4th annual New Jersey Beach Guide that provides important consumer information about the cost, facilities and amenities offered at public beaches in New Jersey shore towns.

View the Beach Guide. 
View NJ Beaches at a Glance. 
View NJ’s least and most expensive beaches. 

“It looks like most beach communities held the line on beach fee increases although there continues to be wide variation among New Jersey beach communities with regard to beach fees and available amenities,” said Chen. “Our hope is that this user-friendly guide will help consumers select the beach they can afford and one that meets their needs.”

The guide includes information about daily, weekly and seasonal fees, accessibility for individuals with disabilities, parking, rest rooms, lifeguard coverage and beach locations. 

While most public beaches kept the daily, weekly and seasonal beach fees at 2008 levels, eight of 52 public beaches have seen rate increases this year. . Two communities, Stone Harbor and Avalon, established a reciprocal agreement which allows a beach tag from one town to be accepted in the other, while Margate and Ventnor continued the practice.

Some other trends in 2009:

• Five towns raised their daily badge fees.
• Five towns raised their weekly badge fees. Ventnor, which does not offer a daily rate, doubled its weekly rate from $5 to $10.
• Five towns raised their seasonal beach badge fees.
• One town, Surf City, decreased it daily tag cost from $8 to $7.

(Some towns have raised multiple fees so the total adds up to more than eight increases. The attached chart summarizes beach fee changes.)

The Beach Guide was assembled with information on public beaches obtained from Jersey shore municipal officials and Web sites.  The data in the report were then provided to local officials to confirm accuracy.

One of the areas of significant variability is in the rules governing whether visitors may bring food to the beach.  Prohibitions can be an inconvenience in towns without a boardwalk or easy access to food stands, restaurants and convenience stores. Barnegat Light, Bay Head, Berkeley Township, Harvey Cedars, Lavallette, Long Beach, Mantoloking, Ocean City, Spring Lake, Sea Girt, Sea Isle City, Spring Lake, Stone Harbor, Ship Bottom indicate that food is prohibited, although some of these communities do allow small snacks.

Many beach communities provide few services to visitors. Mantoloking, again this year, has the highest beach fee and provides the fewest amenities of any beach community. For instance, Mantoloking doesn’t have lifeguards, restrooms, showers, or changing rooms and does not allow food. (Note: Mantoloking is among the beach communities that sells only a seasonal pass and does not make daily beach badges available.) 

Similarly, Monmouth Beach charges $8 and Bay Head, Cape May Point and Lavallette charge $6 for the day and provide lifeguards only, but no public toilets, showers or changing rooms.

Sea Girt raised its daily fee by $1, to $8, and its seasonal fee by $10, to $80, to cover the cost of defending against charges that it violated environmental and wildlife protection laws.. The borough has been charged by the US Fish and Wildlife Service with violating the Endangered Species Act for allegedly killing a piping plover chick while raking the beach. The borough also has been charged by the NJDEP with allegedly raking an area of beach set aside as a nesting area for these endangered birds.

The 2009 Beach Guide will be updated later in the summer to include information on the private beach clubs that the Public Advocate has been able to identify. The beaches adjacent to these clubs are typically available only to club members or people who live in a certain development, neighborhood or town. A handful, however, do operate as public beaches, offering unrestricted access. 

New Jersey has eight free public beaches, with three of those beaches located on a bay. The free beaches are: Highlands, Keansburg and Middletown (all 3 on Raritan Bay), and Atlantic City, North Wildwood, Upper Township, Wildwood City, and Wildwood Crest (all 5 on the Atlantic Ocean).

Arguably the least expensive beach is at Island Beach State Park where a carload of people can enter for $6 during the week and $10 on weekends. Sandy Hook charges $10 per carload throughout the beach season.

Most towns charge between $5 (Asbury Park, Barnegat Light, Beach Haven, Brick, Long Beach, Long Branch, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Seaside Heights and Toms River) and $7 (Allenhurst, Belmar, Deal, Manasquan, Ocean Grove/Neptune, Pt. Pleasant Beach, Surf City and Ship Bottom) per person for a daily badge on a weekend. In 12 towns, it costs between $8 and $12 to go to the beach for one weekend day. These towns include: Avon by the Sea, Bradley Beach, Brigantine, Longport, Mantoloking, Margate, Monmouth Beach, Sea Bright, Sea Girt, Seaside Park, Spring Lake, and Ventnor. In four of those towns, Longport, Mantoloking, Margate and Ventnor, only weekly or seasonal badges are available, meaning people have to pay that fee to visit the beach for a day.

The New Jersey Beach Guide 2009 also includes an updated history of beach access regulation and case law including a discussion of a recent Superior Court decision in late 2008 in which the court ruled that the state Department of Environmental Protection does not have legislative authority to require public access terms (including specific amenities) on municipally owned beaches. 

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