Modern Tourism

[Tony Mig]

This subject came up, and started to hijack Otter's thread...(Maybe you've seen this...)
In an effort to not hijack another thread, and clearly explain my view on this somewhat sensitive subject, I felt I should start a new thread.

I've never been to the left coast, and therefore know not how tourism effects those who live there, but they may or may not share some of my views concerning the subject. I'm sure some of those living in or close to other Jersey shore communities will agree with some, if not all of the points I will attempt to raise, and clarify......

Every location has it's different problems, and their tourism is drawn from different inland locations. My focus is Ocean City, located on the southern Jersey shore. I was born, raised, schooled, and presently work for this island resort community, but I now reside over the bridge (2 & 1/2 miles inland) in Somers Point....(more on that later)

The question was raised by aslbuck, as to why I complain about tourists. There was a time in my life that I looked forward to them coming down. I had formed many friendships with those who only came down durring the summer, and some of those friendships exist today, plus before marrage and kids, I looked forward to the increase in out of town ladies prancing around in bikinis....

Let's go back 30+ years ago. In Ocean City the vast majority of summer resident home owners would have their seashore homes opened up just prior to the Memorial Day weekend, they (or at least their family) would stay for the entire summer, then leave after Labor Day, have a local plumber winterize their home, and we wouldn't see them until the following Memorial Day.
Now most of these folks leave their homes open year round so they can come down and spend weekends at their seashore homes. That wouldn't be so bad if may of them were not stupid about how they did it. They fail to turn off their outside showers, lawn sprinklers, and faucets. They turn the heat down to the lowest setting (usually 55°) and the result is both the water company and the fire dept was left running around shutting off their water at the curb. That accounted for 137 calls for the fire dept this winter, and that doesn't account for the one's the water company did. These same people that would religiously change the batteries in their smoke detectors at home, for some reason fail to do so at their seashore home, accounting for another hundred + false alarm calls. They fail to secure their window screens, and storm doors, many end up blowning off and causing damage to other homes and parked cars. A home is a big responsibility, and when you are not there for long periods of time, steps must be taken to make sure all is secure, this responsibility has gone to the wayside in the past 30 years, which contributes to the form of ignorance I complain about.
30 + years ago the higher % of seasonal home owners actually used their seashore home for themselves, and a smaller % were purchased for rental units. That number has flip-flopped and the higher % are now rental units, making their owners nothing more than seashore slumlords who only care about making as much money as they can without re-investing in the upkeep of these homes.

30 + years ago Ocean City was very dependent on the tourism dollar, since the advent of casino gambling in neighboring Atlantic City, that is no longer the case. Business in this area is divided into two different types....established business, and tourism business. The established business is owned and operated by locals, and most of the tourism business is owned and operated by....."OTHER TOURIST"...!!!
The two main ammusment parks, and a small handful of other tourist related business are owned by locals, but the vast majority of all other tourist related (mainly boardwalk) business are owned and operater by part time tourists who also operate business' in Florida durring the winter...(snowbirds)
The local established business' not only survive, but thrive durring the off season, and they do it on local money not tourism dollars, so tourism is no longer the life blood of this particular Jersey shore community. Many would like you to think it is, but in fact it is not.

30 + years ago people in general were far more polite, respectful, and held a high degree of common sense. That's not the case today as the vast majority of tourist coming into our seashore community are some of the most rude, thoughtless, self absorbed, self centered, ignorant people I've ever had to deal with. They come here with the attitude that because they are tossing a few dollars into our local economy, we should all bend over backwards and kiss their a$$. They drive like complete idiots, they park their cars where ever they want, including other people's driveways, in front of fire hydrants, and I especially love the one's who think they are still in Philly, and double park and leave their cars unattended on our busy narrow streets. Most are generally rude, and demanding, they toss their trash and cigarette butts out their car windows. They rent a unit for a week, and leave it totally trashed, they bitch about the cost of a beach tag, yet they are the reason we have beach tags....(to cover the cost of cleaning up after their filth every morning) They act like the whole world should revolve around them, and they are the root of the high cost of living for the local population, and that is why I moved my family across the bridge to Somers Point. I hated to move, I loved being a walk or bicycle ride away from checking the waves, or going fishing, but the economics of being a home owner forced me across the bridge where I could buy twice the home, for half the cost, and it actually came with a backyard....(something most Ocean City homes don't have)

Now let's look at the effect they have on surfing.....
For the few extra dollars they may put into the pockets of surf shop owners, I have to question the aggrovation they cause the local surfing population. As with everything else, their rudeness extends into the line-up. This has already become a long rant, and I know I don't have to cover all the stupid things they do while surfing since most here have seen it first hand.

Now I'm curious if those in Deleware, the estern shore of Maryland, Virgina Beach, and those north of me see this problem in the same way as I.

I would also like to note that not all tourists, or seasonal residence are like this, we still have a few good ones left, unfortunitely they have been far out numbered by the bad ones....(((can you say co-lateral damage)))

For those who ask....this is why I bitch about tourists......

 

[Wabi_Sabi_Surfer]

I think this article is supporting your point:
"Elsewhere on the Jersey shore, it is illegal to possess a spear gun on the beach in Spring Lake. In Brigantine, you can't impersonate a member of the beach patrol, or "revel, disport or behave in an annoying, boisterous manner, emitting loud cries."

Meanwhile, the borough of Sea Bright appears to be very interested in your innards. A sign posted at the entrance to the beach commands: "Do not enter the water if you are experiencing or recovering from diarrhea, or have had any signs of symptoms of a gastrointestinal disease in the past seven days." :shock:

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=104&pid=0&sid=1150957&page=1

We mostly have signs warning about rip tide and sharks at the beach here in N. California. I guess I never thought of the upside of the cold water here -- keeping diarrhea out of the swell.

 

[pierpont-scott]

As a public servant a Fireman you are paid by those tourist in the monies they spend in tax dollars , tickets/fines, propety taxs etc. I grew up on long island in a beach community and when you speak of rude people nj and ny have some of the rudest people around (not all SOME) so don't blame that on the tourists. You can blame the conditions on your city goverment who see dollar signs from all the people that flock to the shore and not only your beach between memorial day and labor day but most east coast beach community. To tell you the truth the summer was my favorite time of year when all the hot chics flocked to the beach to tan that pasty white skin from the winter cold especiall y the chics from nyc. so with out those tourist you might not have a well paying job like working at the fire department with it great salaries and excellent full benes so stop whining about how folks don't shut off thier water and what not because that is all part of the job you chose to do. stop living in the past 30 years ago there was a whole different world blame it on the cell phone. and you won't here any of the local NJ surf shop owners who frequent on here really bitching about tourist as they are the life blood of their business and you can bet on that. tshirts hats sticker boogie boards rentals sun screen etc this is what keeps them going in the winter months. well hope you have a great memeorial as I am sure the shore line is packed if the weather is good at least that is how it always was out in the hamptons were I grew up during the summer.

 

[Tony Mig]

Pierpont-scott your opinion is noted, however some of the points you make in refference to my employment holds little water. It is irrelevent what I do for a living, if my living was a garbage man, it wouldn't change the complaint I have concerning the general rudeness and ignorance of those tourists I speak of, so why did you feel it was nessessary to bring my employment into this discussion.....?
Ocean City still had a paid fire dept all durring the great depression when tourism was at it's all time lowest point, so stating that my job is 100% dependant on tourism is not entirely true, and the fact that I get paid a fair salary with benefits doesn't give every person who visits that town the right to be an a$$hole, so again I don't see how these points you bring up validates anything.

I will agree that tourism does help the economics of the surf shop business, but these surf shops seem to survive all winter long, there are three full service surf shops that stay open all year on the island, and two others on the mainland (Northfield, Marmora).
No doubt the Wawa's, Shoprite's, and Acme supermarkets benefit from tourism too.

But as most, you did not understand the reasoning behind my words, I don't have a problem with tourism, I have a problem with the way tourist act, and or conduct themselves when they are on vacation. The fact that they don't care for their seashore property the same way they take care of their perminate residence.
It is not the job of the fire dept, or any other civil servant to babysit, or play nursemaid to these people, it's called personal responsibility. I take personal responsibility for those things in my life that I'am responsible for....my wife & children, my pets, my home and everything in it, or around it, my motor vehicle, and especially myself. I obey the laws, I pay my taxes, and I try my best to be respectful of those around me. I wouldn't expect this from our tourists unless I was willing to practice what I preached, my complaint is that our tourists (most of, not all) are not willing to even try to be respectful or responsible.

Again sir, this has nothing to do with my employment......

 

[pierpont-scott]

you brought your employment into it by how dam tourist leave their water on then pipes burst and you have to go do your job and complain about it. Yeah they are morons for that but thats what working for the public is all about. I still live in a beach side community and every weekend we have tourist come and take over our parks, beachs( leave them looking like a trash dump) , park infront of my drive way and what not. you know what I feel fortunate enough to live 500 feet from the ocean and those kooks have to drive and leave on sunday to go back to the valley but such is life when you live next to the ocean. we are all tourist at one time or another. open the gate on the draw bridge on memeorial day and don't let it back down until labor day that might help.

 

[Banana]

I'll bet that a lot of the changes you see are caused not by changes in the tourists, but in the number of tourists. For example, they seem ruder and stupider, but it could just be that with many more tourists, you end up encountering more of the rude, stupid ones.

I see a lot of problems as having a root cause of overpopulation.

 

[Tony Mig]

pierpont-scott wrote:

you brought your employment into it by how dam tourist leave their water on then pipes burst and you have to go do your job and complain about it. Yeah they are morons for that but thats what working for the public is all about.

I know what working for the public is about, I've been doing it for the last 22 years.
I was not complaining about having to do my job either, I was trying to shed some light on the failure of basic common sense displayed by many of our out of town property owners. The fact that they wouldn't forget to do these basic maintance tasks at their perminate residence, yet so many of them fail to take care of these things at their seashore property.
We gladly handle these issues at no charge to the owner, and I know for a fact that many other communities with paid professional fire dept's would charge these people a fee every time they got called out for anything other than a structure fire.

I get the feeling you have an agenda here pierpont-scott, is it that you depend on tourism for your livelyhood, and resent my view point, or are you a taxpayer with a hard-on for paid civil servents......?
You keep bringing my employment into this, and it really has nothing to do with how rude, stupid, or obnoxiuos our tourists have become.

Banana...your points are very valid, as a matter of fact our over all population has grown over the past 30 years due in part to casino gambling in Atlantic City, and the number of seasonal visitors has grown as well. I think in part it is a numbers issue, but I also think that the general population has grown ruder, and more self centered.
I see a general lack of basic manners and politeness even durring the off season with the local population, with the addition of those who do not have a vested interest in this area come here in large numbers, that general lack of manners and politeness gets stretched to the extremes........

 

[B.O.S.S]

Tony Mig wrote:

pierpont-scott wrote:

you brought your employment into it by how dam tourist leave their water on then pipes burst and you have to go do your job and complain about it. Yeah they are morons for that but thats what working for the public is all about.

I know what working for the public is about, I've been doing it for the last 22 years.
I was not complaining about having to do my job either, I was trying to shed some light on the failure of basic common sense displayed by many of our out of town property owners. The fact that they wouldn't forget to do these basic maintance tasks at their perminate residence, yet so many of them fail to take care of these things at their seashore property.
We gladly handle these issues at no charge to the owner, and I know for a fact that many other communities with paid professional fire dept's would charge these people a fee every time they got called out for anything other than a structure fire.

I get the feeling you have an agenda here pierpont-scott, is it that you depend on tourism for your livelyhood, and resent my view point, or are you a taxpayer with a hard-on for paid civil servents......?
You keep bringing my employment into this, and it really has nothing to do with how rude, stupid, or obnoxiuos our tourists have become.

Banana...your points are very valid, as a matter of fact our over all population has grown over the past 30 years due in part to casino gambling in Atlantic City, and the number of seasonal visitors has grown as well. I think in part it is a numbers issue, but I also think that the general population has grown ruder, and more self centered.
I see a general lack of basic manners and politeness even durring the off season with the local population, with the addition of those who do not have a vested interest in this area come here in large numbers, that general lack of manners and politeness gets stretched to the extremes........

i see your point tony mig now days it seems like most people are out for themselves and could care less about anyone else. its all about number 1 . boss

 

[aslbuck]

"i see your point tony mig now days it seems like most people are out for themselves and could care less about anyone else. its all about number 1 . boss"

seems to me locals not wanting to share their resources with tourists is yet another example of looking out for number one. i'm not saying its wrong, just noting what i observe. do as you wish, it's your absolute right to do so.

 

[pierpont-scott]

Maybe they are obnoxious because they come to your quaint little seaside village and get a great warm recepection from locals who could careless about them other than they better spend some money and then tell them to split. Every tax payer should have a hard on for what is done with or how there monies are wasted . but could careless about your job other than you bring it up in more than a few of your post. I don't rely on tourist for my lively hood so the answer to that is no vested interest , but I do pay alot of taxs . so the tourist arrived this weekend how was it?

welcome to ocean city bro