News Commentary | Finding the Miramar’s Line in the Sand
The Resort Is Still Breaking the Rules, but the Rules Need to Change
I’m just old enough to remember when the former Miramar Hotel still had blue roofs and Jacques the lifeguard patrolled the place like a hawk. If he suspected you of freeloading on the resort’s private property, he’d swoop down on his bicycle and demand in his thick French accent: “Are you a guest of the hotel?” To kids who’d sneaked into the pool, Jacques was downright scary, a tan tyrant in a bright-red speedo. But to the rest of the community, he was a funny, charming fixture who liked to flirt and did handstands on the boardwalk.
There was nothing funny or charming about the three Rosewood Miramar Beach managers in dark suits who recently rousted a group of Montecito families from the beach in front of the hotel. In the fallout, the managers defended their heavy-handedness by comparing themselves to the late Frenchman. They said they were simply enforcing the rules. But Jacques never kicked people off the beach, and he cut a decidedly different figure of authority than the Men in Black who ruined the day of 6th graders celebrating their graduation.
Though both sides have simmered down, the episode exposed how horribly confusing and flawed the Miramar’s private access rules really are. For one thing, the beach’s “mean high tide” mark — the point calculated by the State Lands Commission in 1958 that would normally separate the beach’s private and public zones, and that is often invoked in debates over the resort’s property rights — isn’t the literal line in the sand that matters here.
