YORK, Maine — Maine law prohibits drinking in public spaces, but one beach official said he has personally witnessed people violating the law all the time by drinking openly at beaches.
Jeffrey Patten is the beach operations coordinator for the town of York and said he is willing to resign if town leaders don't enforce the rules and resolve ongoing issues.
Patten has held the position for more than 30 years and is the national compliance officer for the U.S. Lifesaving Association, where he oversees the standards for beaches.
Despite his long tenure, Patten submitted a conditional letter of resignation to the town, demanding that town leaders enforce public drinking law violations.
Patten requested that town assign an officer to patrol the beachfronts, and he also suggested the town add the beaches to the fire department's jurisdiction.
Read the full conditional letter of resignation below.
York has three beaches: York Harbor, Long Sands, and Short Sands Beach. "No drinking" signs are posted at every corner of each beach, but Patten said there is no one around to enforce the law.
"Where can you put 8,000 people together in the United States, let them open drink freely with no police presence?" Patten said. "Where does that occur? This is bizarre."
Patten said he can't find the logic in not assigning a police officer to enforce public drinking laws at the beach.
"It was a time here when drinking was completely concealed. Not that it didn't take place, but it was concealed," Patten said, explaining that people tend to drink more when they're able to openly drink.
Patten said it's not a not a rare event to witness people playing beer pong and drinking alcohol right out in the open in the sand close to the water.
Data from the U.S Lifesaving Association show alcohol use is involved in 70 percent of deaths associated with water recreation.
"Clearly, I don't want to resign from this position," Patten said. "Allowing people to open drink on the beach is not keeping them safe. The town has a responsibility, a municipal responsibility, to keep them in as safe of an environment as possible."
Patten explained that in 2019, a man who was at the beach with a group of friends who he said were drinking drowned at the beach. Patten said there was a big undertow and yellow flags cautioning people not to go out into the water when the incident happened.
A family member of the individual who passed away in the 2019 drowning at Long Sands beach reached out to NEWS CENTER Maine and explained alcohol use was not a factor in the drowning.
NEWS CENTER Maine does not have a copy of the individual's autopsy to verify Patten's or the family member's statements.
Despite the lifeguards doing all they could to save the man, he did not survive the event, Patten said.
Drinking while doing anything is known to impair judgement, slow reaction times, give way to aggressive behavior, and alter someone's physical state of being.
Patten said he thought that incident would be the wake-up call the town needed to better patrol the area and take a harder stance against public drinking.
Town manager Peter Joseph said drinking in public or at the beach is not permitted, but he said he has not received any complaints from community members or others about disturbances involving public drinking.
Joseph said it happens, but patrolling the beach area consistently is not at the top of the town's priority list.
"We have not had a zero-tolerance policy historically, and we don't now. So, there's not a thing of stop and search of coolers or looking into red solo cups to see what's in it," Joseph said.
The way the state law is written is not cut and dry, Joseph said.
"It requires being warned by a law enforcement officer for it to become illegal," he said.
There are no police officers who are stationed at the beach or who report to the beach daily, but they do patrol the general area, Joseph said.
There are community security officers who manage the sidewalk areas, but Joseph explained they do not have the authority to warn people against public drinking or reprimand them.
Joseph said there is a protocol put in place, and town employees are supposed to call police officers any time the see a disturbance.
He explained the police have only been dispatched to the beach twice this year, and only one of those incidents involved alcohol use.
Joseph further noted that police officers are there to respond when an issue escalates, and he said lifeguards can also advise people not to drink on beach spaces.
Patten said most of his lifeguards are teens, and they are not law enforcement. He explained they should not have to deal with the issue at all.
"You need to be here to warn them though. Isn't that funny? He says that, but you need to have police on the beach to warn the people," Patten said.
Lifeguard Emma Dutile said last year, a man who went too far out in the water got aggressive with her while she was pulling him back in.
"We could smell it on his breath," Dutile said.
Joseph said as of right now, being that he and his staff has not received an uptick of complaints, there does not seem to currently be a threat to public safety. Joseph acknowledged that it is always possible that public drinking can become a threat to public safety.
Joseph said he will be speaking to the fire department and the police department to make sure that proper protocol when handling public drinking is being taken.
He also said there has been talk of having officers assigned to beaches, but he explained the officers would most likely be in uniforms that look more like park ranger uniforms.
According to Joseph, people tend to be alarmed when they see officers patrolling areas, and he said he does not want to make changes that interfere with the light, fun atmosphere that beaches often have.
Patten said waiting until there is an uptick in complaints to set a plan in place is ineffective.
"When did Noah built the ark," Patten said. "He did it before the flood."
Patten said he plans to escalate the issue to select board members.