Invasion of the beach snatchers

The beginning of the beach season, with the start of summer just around the corner, has Tel Aviv residents wondering: Where’s our beachfront disappeared to?

The plastic chairs of the beachfront cafes have taken over the sands — to the dismay of waves of local residents.

An angry Tel Avivian referred to the situation as “a monopoly of beach chairs” during an interview with Army Radio Tuesday. He said the beachfront cafes are “taking over” and that there is no room for people who simply want to put down their own towels and enjoy the beach, or stroll or play games along the Mediterranean waterline.

Another resident cited an Israeli law that stipulates that beaches are public spaces — and that the chairs are required to be a certain distance from the shoreline.

A Tel Aviv municipality official acknowledged that the cafes have been allowed to encroach far closer to the water’s edge this year, but claimed that the city’s regulations stipulate that the cafes must keep at least seven meters from the water, and asserted that city inspectors had been instructed to “clear a space” for anybody who needed room to laze in the sun but couldn’t find a spot because of the cafe beach furniture.

“Seven meters?” sniped another interviewee on the afternoon radio show, which first raised the no-room-on-the-beach issue last week and returned to discuss it again on Tuesday. “That is when the tide is out.”

The beach chairs are actually crowding the shore, coming within two meters of the water line, he said. “There’s no room to walk along the water.”

The show’s presenters mocked the city official, asking whether he really expected people to wait for an inspector to clear a space for them among the cafe chairs on the beach. When the official said there was growing demand for more cafe chairs and tables at the water’s edge, the presenters said they greatly doubted this was the case, and that city hall’s new deals with the cafes would force locals to go to the beach elsewhere along the Israeli coast.

However, a local cafe owner echoed the city official. He said people complain to him that they don’t have enough places to sit. “People tell me every day that I should get more seats… It’s the clients who are demanding them.” He said there is plenty of room along the beach — and that the accusations were exaggerations.

A recent Channel 2 blog by Aviv Levi said things were much better on Tel Aviv beaches last summer; renting chairs on the beach is fine, in theory, but it’s a matter of proportion, he said, equating this year’s explosion of beach chairs with wider ailments in Israeli society — including a lack of accountability and an increase in privatization.

If left unchecked, the communal public spaces will become private luxury hotel beaches, argued Levi. City Hall’s ostensible solution — which includes enforcers who walk around to make sure people have a place to sit — are a joke, he continued.

His remedy? Ordinary citizens — the beach goers —  should contact Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, he said, to force the municipality to rethink its tactics, and give the public back its beaches.