NEWS

City considers beach fees successful during shortened season

Posted 1/20/22

When the Warwick Parks and Recreation Department ordered 500 beach parking stickers last spring, they thought they would have enough.

 The City started selling the season passes on June 4 and …

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NEWS

City considers beach fees successful during shortened season

Posted

When the Warwick Parks and Recreation Department ordered 500 beach parking stickers last spring, they thought they would have enough.

 The City started selling the season passes on June 4 and by June 5 at noon, they were sold out, Bev Wiley, Director of Parks and Recreation told the City Council during its Dec. 6 meeting.

Earlier this year, Mayor Frank Picozzi implemented an ordinance approved by the council, but not followed by former Mayor Joseph Solomon, for beach fees at City Park, Oakland Beach and Conimicut.

After realizing that the city would need more passes, Wiley ordered them but was told they wouldn’t be available until mid- June.

The beaches were scheduled to open on June 19 but – because of the delay in getting additional passes - it was decided to wait until July 3 to start charging, Wiley told the Council.

“With the late start of instituting the beach parking fees this year, Parks and Recreation was determined to make it work,” said Wiley. “We were charting very new territory with this being the first time in several years that beach parking fees had been charged.”

Despite having a very limited season this year, Wiley told the Council that the City realized an estimated $28,269 profit from beach fees this summer.

Once the City received the parking passes, Wiley said Parks and Recreation was able to enlist  the help of the Warwick Library that stepped up and offered to have the season passes available for sale at their main branch on Sandy Lane.

“Season pass sales began at the Library on June 19 and were available until Aug. 14 and the process was easy and seamless,” said Wiley.

Wiley said that by having the season passes for sale at the library it also brought members of the community to the library who in the past had not visited there.

But with passes for sale it wasn’t the end of the worries for the City. “Because of the lifeguard shortage which we learned was a statewide issue we were only able to open two of the beaches Oakland Beach and City Park,” said Wiley.

Wiley said that in order to have enough beach fee collectors, they tapped into the crossing guards who were “eager and able to assist us,” said Wiley.

“Even though we didn’t have enough lifeguards to staff Conimicut, we did sell daily passes and collected parking fees there for five weeks starting on July 23,” said Wiley.

Because the beach cleaners didn’t have to be 18, Wiley said they were able to find enough people to fill those shifts.

“We were fortunate that we had plenty of applicants for beach cleaners due to the availability to hire younger workers,” said Wiley.

Wiley said that since a lot of the City’s lifeguards and beach fee collectors left for college and school commitments, Wiley and her staff made the decision on Aug. 23 to no longer sell daily passes or require fees for parking for the remainder of the season which ended on Labor Day.

From June 4 to Aug. 14, the City sold 2,028 season passes to Warwick residents, Wiley said, which totaled $25,590. Out of those sales, 62 percent of those passes were sold to senior citizens.

During that same time period, 292 season passes were sold to non-Warwick residents which totaled $7,540. 50 percent were sold to seniors, Wiley said.

In total the City sold $33,130 in season passes.

Wiley told the Council that from July 3 to Aug. 23 there were a total of 50 available beach days at Oakland Beach and City Park. Out of those, five were rained out which meant they could only collect beach fees for 45 days at those two locations.

Wiley pointed out that Conimicut only had beach fee collectors for the weekends. In total, beach fees were collected there for a total of eight days.

The number of daily passes sold totaled $37,202. For all the passes purchased throughout the season, the City collected $70,332.

For expenses - which included staff, and the printing of the fees - the City paid out $40,263, Wiley told the Council.

Wiley emphasized that the City wasn’t able to sell passes for numerous days and thinks the revenue would’ve been a lot higher if day and season passes were sold for the entire season.

Wiley said that the City’s goal is to start the process earlier for the coming season.

“We’re already recruiting and training lifeguards,” said Wiley. Wiley said that her staff and her have reached out to the schools and CCRI to let them know that they will be in the process of  summer help in the early spring.

She said that they are also working on another “endeavor” of scheduling the beach cleaners not just for the morning but also for an afternoon session to make sure the beaches are safe and clean.

Wiley said that she thinks the City’s success with beach fees will only get better in the future.

“I believe that beach fees was a resounding success, I think it can be more successful in the future,” said Wiley.

beaches, fees

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