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DrMcMeow t1_it8oswo wrote

it has been tried before in the mid 80s.

in 1984 some people with money and beach front properties in Wells didn't like looking at the peasants frolicking and sun soaking on their sand, so a couple dozen of them brought a case against the town and the state to prevent them from doing so.

in 1986 the supreme court extended private ownership to the low water mark, only granting an easement to the public for fish, fowl, navigation, citing the colonial ordinance as maine common law.

also in 1986, while this case was still in the system, before a decision had been made, the state legislature quickly passed the public trust in intertidal land act, which gave the public recreational rights to beaches.

this went back to the courts, and in 1987 the superior court ruled the public trust in intertidal land act unconstitutional, the public had no easements on beaches except for the original fish, fowl, nav.

appealed, and up to the supreme court in 1989, supreme court upheld previous decision, citing the colonial ordinance once again.

so basically it is defaulted back to the 1647 colonial ordinance, which only effects maine and massachusetts (maine was a district of massachusetts at this time), granting a public easement for fishing, fowling, and navigation only.

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fffangold t1_it9464n wrote

So this would require a constitutional amendment then. I can only imagine the attack ads if our state congress actually passed this when it came time for people to vote on it. They'd have to be some out there, wild BS to get people to vote against public access to beaches.

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jimberley t1_it95woq wrote

“Do you want drug addicts sleeping on your beaches?”

“Somalis in your surf?”

“Mexicans in your tide pools?”

I mean, the racist copy writes itself.

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fffangold t1_it9d3d3 wrote

Touche'.

The wild racist BS does indeed write itself.

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weakenedstrain t1_it8qab2 wrote

Can’t we just… do away with the peasants?

Or at least keep them landlocked like good peons?

They’re so… common…

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Runnah5555 t1_it8qj5w wrote

They should try harder to not be so poor.

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weakenedstrain t1_it8r3le wrote

Seriously! The least they could do is have the decency to be born from a wealthy vagina, but no, they had to go squirming out of some poor, common vagina

Silly peasants

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prisonerwithaplan t1_it8u4v8 wrote

We’ll we’re doing our best to make sure they can’t find anyplace to live and will have to leave. Excuse me I have to try and find a <insert name of trade> person. There’s so few here in backwards Maine! Such silly hillbillies. Ta-ta!

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weakenedstrain t1_it9ka5q wrote

Thanks for doing your part! If we all band together we can solve poverty by simply getting rid of the poors. It’s a team effort.

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jimberley t1_it8un00 wrote

Could we amend the state constitution to include public rights to beaches, or would that be superseded by common law?

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EngineersAnon t1_itak198 wrote

It would run into issues with the Federal Constitution's guarantee, in the Fifth Amendment, that "... private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." That would get gorram expensive, gorram fast.

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sy33d_am33r_ali t1_itbm2j2 wrote

That’s only if you seize the property and make it public land. Granting public access to private land is a different thing, and Maine already has several similar laws on the books. The Great Ponds Act, etc.

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EngineersAnon t1_itbn1xi wrote

Outright seizure is not essential for a taking. In the Great Ponds Act, the land to which access is granted must be unimproved, which is very different than letting people cross and occupy your front lawn, or a maintained beach to which you hitherto charged access fees.

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