Achtung! Achtung! Achtung!

Citizens and visitors of Cocoa beach Florida be advised, Beach Rangers are now on active mechanized patrol of the City's beaches.

These special agents of the city government bring to bear a Gestapo presence for creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation to ensure the strict obedience of all rules, regulations, and proclamations of the moment, by all beach users not meeting their standards of approval.

To wit, on Saturday I took my 7 year old granddaughter to 4th Street North for an afternoon at the beach. As we have done since she could sit up on her own, we used a shovel to excavate a modest area for use as a sand castle and swimmin' hole with a water depth to nearly mid-shin deep. I made sure to locate said sand castle \ swimmin' hole well below the hide tide line so as to ensure it was temporary in nature. As a side benefit the small berm created by the sand castle helps ward off intoxicated bicycle riders and provides a margin of safety against the plethora of fossil fuel burning utility vehicles that now constantly ply the area beaches.

After three hours of enjoying the beach and catching a few waves, the Beach Ranger patrol vehicle stopped adjacent to our play area and the female special-beach-ranger-agent dismounted. She notified us of the need to dismantle the safety hazard we had created. When I failed to genuflect appropriately the male special-beach-ranger-agent smartly dismounted the mechanized patrol vehicle and strode confidently over and with peacock-like display of manliness placed himself purposely well inside of my personal space. With a commanding note he informed me if I failed to comply with their commands a law enforcement officer would be summoned to deal with me (apparently overweight men in their 50's pose a special threat requiring an armed response team).

Not wanting to end the day on a sour note for my Granddaughter by having her see me render some low level government prefect the honor of the nickname "shovel head" for the remainder of his short career, I left the beach.

In Cocoa Beach Florida you can sit your children in front of a TV for 14 hours a day and feed them Burger-McDeath until they are suffering from obesity, but apparently it is streng verboten that you take your family outside, actually play with them.

Despite being Cocoa Beach residents, Avery and I will be going to the beach elsewhere for now. No reason to stay where "our kind" are not wanted. We'll go to beaches where a seven year old child who's creed is Live clean, Eat clean, Surf clean, and her Grandfather who does not drink or smoke, and spent 6 years in the U.S. Navy won't be harassed for building sandcastles on Saturday afternoon.

I saw the same thing happen on Mother's Day with a family right next to where ours was hanging out. Same scenario, it was below the high tide line and all. Lame.

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Manganese…Most people don’t even know what that is…

very sad...

I was afriad of theis Beach Ranger patrol thing
make-believe-cops are the worst

I hope you forward this on to Cocoa Beach city hall and the commissioners

-Bob

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... positioning and selection

This needs to be published somewhere for more CCB residents to read. Well written tale of an unfortunate case.

Come on down to Paradise it's a family haven.  

Bob, I will be letting the city know. Sharon already spoke to the P.D.

The more I think about it the more I think this goon squad should be dis-banded before we are required to defend our families.

But I am probably the least of their worries, Sharon is very upset and not ready to let this stand at all.

 

Yeah let's push them back on this... I get it in the touron areas but not da streets that all us locals

What do you all think is the best plan of attack???  

Wastefull spending... only patrol highly tourist area

 

 

 

 

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get up early and go surf - it'll make that hangover go away and/or make the workday more tolerable :)

I informed the Cocoa Beach City Commission of my negative experience in an e-mail.

For anyone else wishing to do so, their addresses are listed below.

sbeeler@cityofcocoabeach.com
kgriffin@cityofcocoabeach.com
kpruett@cityofcocoabeach.com
swilliams@cityofcocoabeach.com
dnetterstrom@cityofcocoabeach.com

Head south. That is ridiculous.

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Exotica Tropicals
Plant Nursery
Brevard Florida

I tryed to understand what that dude was sayin but he used to biga words for me to understand, bein from West Melbourne I don't understans wat yur sayin. Sounds like you can't play in the sand whats up with that.

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capt. seen

Sent......

Unbelievable,,,,,,,, we live just down the beach, guess we`d better watch out, I will cause a problem, just sayin`

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I've decided to accept the fact - I'll always be a big kid!

Whatsup! The new Cocoa Beach rent-a-ranger's threatened to bring in the cops because we dug a small hole and made a sand castle - at the beach! Stupid but true.

Sucky.  Nice storytellin' though.  Just couldn't help but picture the cast of Reno 911 all up in ya. 

This kinda stuff just don't surprise anymore.  Hell, you can't even bring a ball down to the beach with your kid here in PBC.

Sorry to hear that story....Always the case, no matter what job there is always an employee that has NO business being in that position/department and usally counters everything the good people are trying to accomplish.    We had a certain guy in our department a few years ago (previously retired coast guard), and I got tired of continuoulsly apologizing for him, advising citizens that we are seriously not trying to be like that.   I am very glad he moved on.      -Aloha, and many happy family beach days to y'all !

Rediculous. I had a feeling those "beach rangers" weren't going to have enough to do.

I would just bow on up and ask him to show me some kind of written law or sign posted on the beach or crossover. Those kooks have totally gone rogue. They can't make that shoots up as they go ... Better show me some statutes and quit making up laws on the spot. Threatening a family??? Grandad and Granddaughter ... Stfu

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Ka'a'awa avocado

Can't have trip hazards so the people who legally get falling down drunk on the beach injure themselves. Seriously though, this is disappointing. I consistently argue with one particular city commissioner about beach issues and this is more ammunition. Instead of handling root problems, spend the money for a beach patrol to alienate families. The ranger could have handled it much better. Simply coming over and asking you nicely to fill in your hole when you are done would probably had a better result.

That really stinks.

They got my daughter and I last weekend all the way down by 11th.

I am a Cocoa Beach resident and have small children 9 and 4 yeas old, sometimes I wish I could give some turists a ticktes for throwing trash on the beach, however one day my kids were playing around the dunes and they got yelled by a old man from a beach condo, so I told him thats was funny that the kids  were not able to play on the dunes but someelse could build a entire building on the top of it.

I had the same problem the other day, but I didn't fill it in and I didn't leave; I'd love to be arrested, then make the National news for building a sand castle on the beach.

There has been a big push for beach enforcement over the years, looks like we got it.

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"Born fine the first time."