cant believe i got a ticket today for surfing. i was at the pier at 15th here in vb and got waved in by "marina police" and they wrote me up. No lifeguards there were blowing us in, received no warning, and i was very respectful. there are skimboarders that skim under the pier and there were swimmers closer than 200ft. i dont understand why the lifeguards didnt even give us a warning.... the current was pulling us into the pier as well. Should I go to court or just bite it and pay it off. I'm not really worried about it on my record, just the principle. Any advice guys?
surfing within a no surfing, no swimming, bodyboarding zone. i was barely in it and the sideshore wasnt helping. it isnt even memorial day yet. they never enforce anything until then anyway
I think you can surf anywhere until 10 am then we are confined to the area between the jetty and sixth street. They usually have some kind of signage around stating the hours. I can't believe they stroked you a ticket before memorial day though. Summer is almost here unfortunately with all the nonsense that comes with it.
yea, that's kinda bs. fighting it probably won't get you anywhere since technically speaking, you were out-of-bounds. you were just unlucky enough to cross paths w/ that douchebag cop who feels he's gotta flex his muscle & prove how tough he is.
yea its like 9-4 no surfing mon.-thurs. and 9-5 fri. sun. between memorial day and labor day. o trust me. i live down here at the oceanfront. its already begun. but its how our town does well. lineups are gonna be crowded again.
What time were you there? I put in 4 hours there today. I was the first one out there by the looks of it this morning. Around 930 through about 1030 there were 2 cops hanging out at the shoreline and appeared to be "waiting" for someone to get out. Perhaps they were looking to ticket or they saw the 23 foot swell the Hindu models were rippin and wanted to have a bench off. I dunno
I think if you surf within 200 ft of the pier at any time they consider that the violation, regardless of the season. They probably consider it a safety issue with the fishermen's lines so close to the pier and not wanting any surfers kissing the pilings under the pier or getting hooked in the mouth by a fisherman. You could probably look the violation up online for an explanation.
they hate freedom in Virginia beach. Is it a people's republic yet? The City "needed" more police boats, and they got them. Only problem for us is that they are going to have to write a lot of surfing tickets to pay for the $2 million dollar custom built drug interdiction boats. I mean, only the finest for VB's finest to scream at you through a megaphone on...
too close to the pier. My bud got one 15 years ago. drifted within 200' so belly whopped in. A piggy dressed up like a touron sitting on the beach, jumped up and wrote him up as he was walking out of the water.
Last century they had high speed boats and helicopters to assure the safety of the non surfing public. I was out in 80th st after 10, a heli flew over me with a loud speaker telling me it was time to get out. I paddled back out like I didn't hear. He kept dropping lower and yelling louder. I kept paddling like I was Helen Keller. The water was churning around me he was so close. he finally flew off, so I caught the next one in before the troops showed up.
Do they walk you to your car to check your license so you arent able to give a fake name? This sounds like a nightmare, I thought Jersey in the summer was bad.
I'd argue it: The current was pulling you to the pier and you were obviously trying to get a wave to come in and walk back up the beach. PLUS you would have wound up UNDER the pier had you tried to paddle all the way in so too the best of the two options you had available to you--taking a wave, even bellying it in is way quicker and easier to get to your reference point on the beach because you can make more lateral headway while heading in. There were no fishermen on that side of the pier because only an idiot would try to toss bait up-current and up-wind and another pier fisherman would correct them very quickly in the event they did--so you thought you had a little room. You don't carry a tape measure with you surfing and due to the drift and angle to where the marker is on the beach (we have red pilings, I assume you have something like that) it was very hard to judge your distance and you thought you were at least 250' from the pier. Lastly, there were skimboarders swimming and riding waves UNDERNEATH the pier who the officer didn't seem to care about.
yeah that sucks. don't know what to tell you but every part of me would want to fight it... I remember I was getting out of the surf this one time... 23 footers.... I got a ticket for bench pressing too much weight.
I'd fight it too...out of principle and just to save a few bucks...Erock's logic sounds solid, just don't tell them you were trying to shot the pier.
I'm not familiar with the scoff laws of VaB but I quickly scanned the "surfing generally" section and I didn't see a violation. According to johnny law what section of the code did you break? http://library.municode.com/HTML/10122/level3/CO_CH6BEBOWA_ARTVBOSKSU.html#CO_CH6BEBOWA_ARTVBOSKSU_S6-116SUGE
Killa- Northside and it was around 3 or 4ish Marsh- yea probably but i dont see those dbags out during the winter during a noreaster swell Erock- im sure the judge has heard all the excuses in the book before because they write these pretty often there. and there is no law concerning skimboarders so they technically cant write them up. every time they go to court it gets thrown out. my friend got written up once and he got out of it because the sign technically doesnt say it. don't understand why the swimmers got out of it though. im just frustrated because the other guy probabky ruined it for me. He refused to come in and was arguing with him for like 10 minutes. i just paddled in and nicely asked what was going on. I honestly thought it was the lifeguards blowing at kids in the water or something but they didnt even whistle at us once. usually we would at least get a warning from them. he probably wouldnt have given me a ticket if it was just me. i really wasnt trying to ignore him. its just never happened to me before
