A man hailing from the town of Duck, North Carolina was arrested on Wednesday after capturing a confrontation over public access to a local beach on video. Police charged him with second-degree trespassing, according to the Town of Duck’s official statement. The video has since gone viral.
Bob Hovey, owner of a local surf shop called Duck Village Outfitters, has apparently long crusaded against private beach access points in his town that he believes effectively make public beaches private. On Wednesday morning, he got into an expletive-laden back and forth with two residents of an area called Sand Dollar Shores. The couple called the police and Hovey was taken into custody.
“Yesterday I believe I became the first person in the history of Duck to get arrested for going to the beach,” Hovey wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “I recorded two separate instances where I was harassed and on the later incident arrested and taken to jail.”
According to the town’s official statement, this wasn’t the first instance where Hovey and Sand Dollar Shores residents have gotten into it over public access.
“The charge and arrest were the culmination of a long-standing dispute between Mr. Hovey and the property owners of the Sand Dollar Shores subdivision,” the town’s official statement reads. “After repeated attempts by the Town of Duck Police Department to pursue a peaceful resolution, officers on the scene today acted to diffuse a situation that was escalating.”
According to OBX Today, the towns of Duck and neighboring Southern Shores have no public beach access points, even though the towns maintain the beaches themselves are public. In particular, Hovey has targeted the private access point at Sand Dollar Shores specifically because it reportedly has a public easement.
“This is deeded to the public,” Hovey repeats in the video.
Hovey took his complaint to court in 2017, reports OBX Today. But in a Facebook post, Hovey explains, “The Town attorney fought hard to get the court to accept Duck as a private beach in a summary judgement (sic) hearing which was intended to settle the case before a judge without going to trial. The judge dismissed the case but did not make a determination on the validity of the public accesses for or against.”
In the same post, Hovey explains that between this recent charge and ongoing efforts to fight for public access, he doesn’t have the funds to continue. The post is an effort to raise $10,000 for legal proceedings and at time of publication, some 60 people had already donated more than $3,000.
“If I can get some help with funds we can work together as a community to stop them from permanently shutting down our beaches and hopefully get them to lift some of the parking restrictions the Duck town council has put in place,” says Hovey.
In the town’s official statement, it emphasizes that by law all local beaches are public, but access points are not maintained by the town.
“The Town of Duck does not restrict an individual’s use of the public beach, but it does not own or maintain any beach access locations in the town,” the town explained. “Because the accesses are privately owned and maintained, the Town cannot grant permission for their use and unauthorized use could be deemed trespass as it would with any other private property.”
Public beach access disputes, of course, are part and parcel of the surf world – the most high-profile of which being a dispute over public access at California’s Martins Beach that rose to the level of the Supreme Court.
Hovey’s movement has reportedly gained traction prompting a “public access walk” event that gained 600 attendees on Facebook before it was deleted, according to reports.
