Frenchy’s abandons umbrella takeover on Ocean City beach

OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Frenchy’s apparently couldn’t stand the heat.

The outcry over the french fry shack’s commandeering a beach in the heart of Ocean City with its branded umbrella and chair business has led the company — after negotiations with the mayor — to outsource the rental business.

Frenchy’s promises that this company will not set up empty chairs ahead of time, a commercial encroachment that infuriated longtime beachgoers.

“Thank God,” said Kris Fisher of Quakertown, sitting in former Frenchy territory Monday with friend Janice Deal. “It looked like an invasion.”

Adventure Golf LLC, Frenchy’s parent company, stuck to its assertion of riparian rights in its deed, which marks out boundaries to the high tide line dating back to 1910, but said it would “take minimal advantage” of those rights.

Last week, Mayor Jay Gillian suggested that a compromise was in the works — “It’s over,” he told reporters after the city council meeting — and would be made public Friday, but none was.

Monday morning, he posted a letter on the city’s website saying the agreement left the beach “free of the unoccupied setups that took up so much space at this popular destination.”

“I want everybody to know that the city will do whatever it takes to preserve public access to the beach on behalf of every resident, guest, and business in town,” he wrote.

Gillian, Ocean City officials, and even the french fry shack, which replaced Curly’s, have been the target of a wave of anger over Frenchy’s assertion that it had ownership rights at a public beach.

Larry Hajna, a spokesperson with the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the state had no record of granting riparian rights to the property, at 820 Boardwalk. Dotty McCrossen, Ocean City solicitor, said she had reviewed the deed and determined those rights existed.

Over the weekend, Frenchy’s apparently adopted a less aggressive posture on the Music Pier beach, leading to a mix of Frenchy’s and non Frenchy’s umbrellas and chairs.

But the company said in a Facebook post late Sunday that it had unexpectedly received an offer from Swift Beach Services to lease the operation effective Monday.

Swift operates similar facilities in Ocean City, the company said. The deal was finalized Sunday afternoon, the company said. “With the lease, the Swifts can concentrate 100% on beach services at this and other locations while Adventure Golf focuses on its other business ventures,” the company said in a release.

As a result of its conversations with the mayor, the company said, “Adventure Golf assured that the lease offered for beach services, which are adjacent to the Ocean City Music Pier, preclude the pre-setting of the chairs and umbrellas prior to rental.”

Bitterness was lingering, however, as one person responded to the company’s post: “Does this mean, since you are taking advantage of the rights granted to you, that your chairs and umbrellas will only be on ‘your’ land and will not cross the high tide line?”

Swift’s will compete with longtime umbrella concession Bert’s, which continued to set up its green-and-yellow umbrellas on demand from farther up the same beach.

On Monday morning, an employee with Bert’s showed up as usual and began offering its umbrellas and chairs for rent. But Frenchy’s bright yellow chaise lounges and yellow-and-red umbrellas remained under wraps, leaving the beach wide open for people bringing their own gear.

Dave Coskey, a spokesperson for Adventure Golf, said the company had engaged in a week of talks with the mayor prior to the offer from Swift and had been “cutting back on the number of setups.”

“They were trying to be sensitive to a lot of the feedback,” he said.