There are those that...
would love to privitize the beaches of the Dominican Republic; the eastern end of the Samana peninsula, Las Galeras and Playa Rincon included. When I read the DR Travel News item regarding the banning of motorized vehicles within the 60 meters I immediately wondered how many of the DR's beaches (and specifically these Samana beaches) could be accessed. And to have to walk to them and then down the beach to find the right "spot" is ludricrous at best when there is a a perfectly good, unpaved road that goes to and parallels many of these beaches anyway. And as the roads are unpaved, full of ruts and holes and generally not improved, vehicles racing down them and endangering pedestrians just doesn't happen. Occassionally some fool will try on his dirt bike or quad and they usually dump it and discover that sand can produce road rash just like asphalt and many also end up with a "Samana Tatoo," a burn on the leg from the hot exhaust pipe. However, it DOES happen in Las Terrenas where the road beside the beach has now been improved and paved. Before this, you couldn't exceed 10mph without tearing your vehicle apart. You still can't on the roads along the beach in Las Galeras or Rincon.
I wasn't aware of the wall down to the beach that Club Bonito built, but I do know that the owner of the hotel has wanted to and tried to privitize "her" beach for as long as I can remember. Casa Marina Bay has in fact achieved this "de facto" as they do not encourage non-guests from enjoying Cala Blanca beach in front of the resort. And in fact, about 4 years ago, one of their armed guards escorted some of my hotel's guests off the property at gunpoint. They were riding our horses along the beach in front of the resort and needless to say, when they returned and told me of this I went ballistic and paid the manager a "social" visit to discuss this reprehensible action. He wouldn't speak to me for a long time after that and was still wincing the last time I saw him.
And although I don't condone violent strikes by the populace (bad image for tourism), I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them in this instance (even though I am currently in Florida until next November). This law is nothing but an attempt to privitize the DR's beaches for the benefit of a few (mostly hotel owners) and accordingly is a bad law. I've seen the same attempts at privitization here in Daytona Beach and Volusia County, Florida and I fought it as the elected Vice-President of the Sons of the Beaches (I was the second biggest SOB in Daytona for a long time). Not only were we fighting for continued public access, we also fought charging a toll to be able to drive on the beach.
We were eventually able to keep the entire beach open for pedestrian traffic, but did not succeed in getting rid of the toll. Resultingly, as there is very little off-beach parking, there are now huge stretches of our 42 miles of the "world's most famous beach" that are virtually deserted due to the steps taken after we lost the fight (some in the name of "turtle" protection; gotta' give 'dem turtles plenty of room even though it deprives much of the poorer population of the simple pleasure of an accessible beach). And guess where they are: in front of many of the large hotels and condos and very expensive, oceanfront-homes.
De Facto privitization? You bet it is and the same thing is now happening in the DR. Shame on the politicians that support this and greater shame on the hotels that are pushing this unjust and short-sighted law.