Judge to decide if religious Jersey Shore town can close beach on Sunday mornings

Beach closed for Sunday services at Ocean Grove Beach on September 3, 2023.

A dispute involving the longtime practice in Ocean Grove of blocking beach access from its boardwalk on summer Sunday mornings may be resolved by a state administrative court judge.

Up to five days of hearings have been scheduled, starting April 17, as a landowners’ association challenges an order, from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to stop using chains and padlocked barriers blocking beach access from its Monmouth County boardwalk or risk fines of up to $25,000 per day.

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association has cited religious freedom and its origins as a Methodist community retreat. But the DEP, which first sent a violation notice in September, said the restriction runs afoul of state law.

Judge Tricia Caliguire will preside over a hearing in Trenton, which is scheduled for five days over two weeks concluding April 26, according to the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law.

The battle over summer beach access on Sunday mornings, which prompted protests last year, is part of a larger debate over the influence of religion in public spaces in the Ocean Grove section of Neptune Township. Ocean Grove is a seaside community of roughly 3,000 residents founded more than 150 years ago.

Critics separately took issue with the association’s decision to build a $2 million pier in the shape of a Christian cross that opened last April, but has been closed since December amid structural concerns.

The camp meeting association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ocean Grove was governed by the association as a religious enclave for a century until the New Jersey Supreme Court declared its original charter unconstitutional after a series of lawsuits. However, the association still owns all the land and helps oversee the boardwalk and beachfront community.

The nine “step entrances” — access points from the Ocean Grove Boardwalk onto the beach — historically have been closed on Sunday mornings from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. However, Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association officials have said the beach is not closed because the public can still get on the sand if they walk along the high tide line from Asbury Park to the north or from Bradley Beach to the south.

“The slight limitation on physical presence on the beachfront on the Lord’s Day is consistent with the Plaintiff’s Mission to build and maintain a beautiful seaside community to serve as a place for meditation, reflection and renewal during the summer months,” the association’s attorney, James M. McGovern, stated in a lawsuit filed last fall against some critics of the beach restriction.

That lawsuit has since been withdrawn, according to the Asbury Park Press.

However, DEP is countering that the restriction runs afoul of the state’s Coastal Area Facility Review Act.

“The department recommends that representatives of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association engage in compliance discussions with the Bureau of Coastal and Land Use Compliance and Enforcement aimed at resolving this matter as soon as possible,” regional supervisor Robert H. Clark wrote in his letter last fall to the association.

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Rob Jennings may be reached at [email protected].

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