Sauble Beach is closing off its whole shoreline to everyone—including residents—due to unruly "visitors from the epicenter of Ontario's COVID hotbed," which likely refers to Toronto.
On Monday, the South Bruce Peninsula Mayor announced that her team had to make the “very difficult decision” to close the town's beaches—including Ontario’s famous Sauble beach—after witnessing “the recklessness of beachgoers” for two consecutive weekends.
Pointed post from South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Janice Jackson as she announces Sauble Beach is now closed after daunting crowds the last two weekends and out-of-town rule breakers. Jackson says they’re reaching out to the province to see if OPP can help with future enforcement. pic.twitter.com/iSbm6yMJxD
— Erin Anderson (@erinbailey_a) June 23, 2020
"Most of our residents followed the rules and we thank you for that, but the day trippers flagrantly defied our restrictions and took over many parts of the beach," Mayor Janice Jackson wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.
"Council is incredibly worried at the thought of 60,000 visitors to our tiny beach over the long weekend and how that would inevitably affect our community during this global pandemic," she added. "Our community has remained relatively virus free and we want to remain that way."
The Mayor said that the town’s local law enforcement officials aren’t able to enforce coronavirus restrictions on thousands of people at the same time.
"Our Bylaw Enforcers have taken much criticism for not enforcing the beach," Jackson noted.
And this is why they closed #SaubleBeach...Come on city folk, be more respectful of #LakeHuron @fordnation pic.twitter.com/O3M7dYRri9
— Lou Anne Goetz (@goetzla) June 23, 2020
"In their defence I want to remind people that we have a 4km beach and with 6 Officers dealing with various issues, they covered as much ground as they could... In addition to our challenges, we had little to no help from the overtaxed OPP. They are short officers and often can’t respond at all."
The Red Bay Lodge, a local resort uploaded photos to Facebook showing the graffiti and vandalism that has occurred at the beach.
Spray-painted words on the wall of a beachside bathroom say, "F*CK U JACKASS".
Another wall has "OUR TOWN" written on it.
"We are DEEPLY saddened to learn of the disgusting vandalism on our town's facilities," Red Bay Lodge wrote in its post.
"Resorting to this vulgar messaging after the decision to close Sauble Beach shows so much about one person, and our collective response of love today will show even more about everyone else."
Jackson said that though the decision may not be popular, she’d rather play it too safe than "ignore this problem and watch our community pay the price."
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