nwfdailynews.com: Private property rights often collide with public use of coastline

By Tom McLaughlin

June 6, 2015

Each year, thousands flock to the beaches of Northwest Florida to find the peace and serenity offered by sun, surf and sand.But more and more it seems, the beaches have become battlegrounds, where tourists and locals alike clash over who’s trampling on whose slice of paradise.Lisa Frifand, a 20-year South Walton County resident, was recently chewed out by a belligerent tourist as she was fishing at the same beach location she’d been casting from for years.

Not long after, following a morning of picking up trash left behind by others, a beach service employee refused to let her use a garbage can at a condominium’s private beach to throw the litter away.

“It’s starting to get really territorial,” Frifand said.

A frequent beach visitor, Frifand says she sees people being accosted by “self appointed beach police” … “grown up hall monitors” … and “visitors for the week” exercising “a  sense of entitlement” passed on by “companies/owners that rent their properties for the season.”  Read more: