Driving ban fuels protest at beach
Ban prohibits cars near Fort Matanzas National Monument
By Chad Smith
A line in the sand was drawn on the beach north of Matanzas Inlet on Friday.
On one side there was a group of fishermen and other locals upset that they could no longer cross that line -- at least in their vehicles.
On the other were park rangers, on hand to enforce the driving ban on a 1-mile stretch of beach around the Fort Matanzas National Monument that went into effect with the start of the new year.
"The government's out of control, from the top down to the bottom," said Adriane Miles, carrying a sign that read, "The Lord giveth and the National Park Service taketh away."
"It's another infringement of people's rights, and it's not right," Miles said.
The several dozen protesters feel they have a right to drive up and down this particular stretch of beach as some have for decades.
But the National Park Service recently determined that, under a federal law in place since 1972, it could not allow driving on its beaches -- at least not this one.
Gordie Wilson, the superintendent of the Castillo de San Marcos and the Fort Matanzas national monuments, was at the beach to observe the rally and answer questions from the hostile crowd.
"You've never had a problem with it before," one protester said.
"I don't have the authority to break the law," Wilson replied.
Jim McCartney, a fisherman who goes by the nickname "Matanzas Jim," said he had been fishing at the inlet for decades.
But, without being able to drive down, he won't be able to get his gear there.
"I can't hoof that anymore at 70 years old," McCartney said. "It's a sad, sad day."
One fisherman with one leg and another on crutches showed up to prove that they, too, won't be able to fish there anymore.
Miles' sister-in-law, Karen Miles, who owns the nearby Devil's Elbow Fishing Resort, said the St. Johns County Commission should step up to the federal government to protect the pastime.
On Dec. 15, the commission passed a resolution declaring its support for beach driving and urging the park service to expedite the process to reinstate it.
But Miles, who fears the ban will cost her some business, believes the commissioners should do more.
"They have the power," she said. "They don't have the backbone."
For now, though, the issue is a federal one.
Wilson said National Park Service attorneys determined several months ago that beach driving on the Fort Matanzas property was a violation of an order, signed by President Richard Nixon, to prohibit vehicles from driving off roadways at national monuments.
"We always thought that, historically, our boundary was a little closer to the dune," Wilson said.
But after the attorneys examined the boundaries and the law, they decided to close the beach to vehicle traffic.
"It's a very polarizing issue," he said. "It is a part of the culture here, and it's not something we did lightly."
He said that the order was put in place to help carry out one of the park service's mission: to protect the country's natural resources.
His explanations did little, if anything, to appease the crowd.
One protester, who said he was a local Baptist preacher and would only identify himself as "Ben Franklin," got within a foot of Wilson and called him a "coward."
He held a sign that read, "N Park Serv Hitler's Soldiers" and compared the ban to the Holocaust.
At several times, he accused a female park ranger of taking a job away from a man.
He was outcast by others at the rally as extreme, but all seemed to have at least some animosity toward Wilson and the government in general.
One woman held a sign depicting Uncle Sam's foot stomping on a truck on the beach under the words "You're next."
Jack Davis, a professor of Florida and environmental history at the University of Florida, said beach driving has a "long cultural tradition in Florida, dating back to the first cars and an early form of auto racing."
"But polluting Florida's rivers and draining its wetlands has an equally long tradition. None of these practices make ecological sense," Davis said. "If one truly wishes to commune with nature, the place to do it is not behind a windshield."
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