By Stephen Appezzato
FAIR HAVEN – The borough council is drafting a law that would limit crabbing and fishing hours on the public waterfront to confront persistent issues the council believes stem from late-night visitors.
According to neighbors, the Fair Haven Dock has become somewhat of a “lawless land.” Many residents have reported crabbers causing a ruckus late at night, slamming car doors, leaving rotting chicken bones strewn about, littering, cooking with open flames and even reclining on mattresses for overnight stays during prime crabbing season.
Those who live near the dock gathered at a recent borough council meeting to voice their concerns. This “has never been an issue with town residents ever,” resident Melissa Newell said. “I will say since COVID there’s been a drastic change in the people that have been using the dock.
Newell said she witnessed visitors at the dock in the wee hours of the morning.
“They’re filling Gatorade bottles with urine and they’re leaving all of their garbage, they DoorDash food to the dock, they come for the day. It is an 8-hour affair. They are catching anything and everything that they can; there is no size limit. They’re not following the rules,” she said.
“My kids aren’t even allowed to go there when it starts to get dark because there’s so many random people,” she said.
Another resident, Peter Gotch, echoed this sentiment.
“They are lining the side of the dock, there are kids on mattresses.”
“They’ve got the chicken bones, they’ve got coolers – God only knows what’s in them,” Gotch said. (Raw chicken is often used as bait.)
The council’s current plan is to create an ordinance that would prohibit certain activities on the dock, like cooking with open flames, as well as ban crabbing and fishing overnight. The details of the curfew are not yet finalized, but crabbing would likely be prehibited from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Violators can expect to be hit with hefty fines. The council mentioned a $250 penalty for first offenses and a $500 to $750 fine for subsequent infractions.
“The draw to the dock, for the people on the bed, isn’t because it’s a nice place to take a nap,” said Mayor Josh Halpern. “They’re coming down there to crab and fish, that’s the essence of why this (ordinance) is being written the way it is.”
The council hopes that by cracking down on crabbing and fishing hours, the police will have an enforceable law to deter late-night misconduct. Otherwise it is difficult to police the dock.
“This ordinance allows the police officers to do their job and to now enforce certain time frames and certain penalties,” said borough attorney Andrew Sobel.
Although, as one resident noted, a balance must be struck to preserve a facet of what makes Fair Haven special.
Bill Perkins spoke fondly of crabbing at the dock with his son. He noted setting curfew hours in relation to sunset may be a better direction, allowing a balance for later crabbing in the summer, a popular activity for many local children.
“I think the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. are prohibitive for 10-year-old kids having to ride their bikes to the dock and fish in the summertime,” Perkins said.
“I just don’t want to see 10-year-old kids prohibited from being able to do this.”
Halpern stressed the ordinance is about striking a balance. “If we get feedback from the community that that’s too restrictive, it’s a living, breathing document. We can manipulate the time to get to that sweet spot that works for everyone,” he said.
The ordinance will likely be completed and introduced at the upcoming Nov. 13 council meeting. The public will have more opportunity to voice support or objections to the law then and upon the ordinance’s adoption hearing at the subsequent council meeting, if the council votes to introduce it.
The article originally appeared in the November 2 – November 8, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
