⚾ Memo to Justice Alito | Down the Shore

It’s calm here midweek, just a lovely morning with rolling waves, breakfast surfers, and a smattering of lucky people sitting on the beach.

But whew! Memorial Day Weekend was relentless. As most of you probably heard, there was a false report of a shooting that caused a stampede in Seaside, a stabbing amid the hordes on the Ocean City boardwalk, and so much bedlam in Wildwood that officials shut down the boardwalk after midnight and declared a state of emergency until dawn.

📮 Be my eyes and ears at the Shore! Please send tips or story ideas to me here. Or to the Inquirer’s tip line here.

Once again, there was angst about all the teens coming down the Shore with a sense of abandon, and about the newly tweaked state law regarding juveniles and alcohol, which police still feel ties their hands and emboldens teens. Others, including Gov. Phil Murphy, feel the law brings a much-needed level of fairness and reform to the juvenile justice system, and leaves police with the tools they need.

Was it “chaos at the Shore,” as news outlets called it? Or “civil unrest,” as Wildwood officials called it to justify their state of emergency? Gov. Murphy took issue with the blanket “hysterical” descriptions, insisting on News12′s Ask the Governor segment on Tuesday that there were three isolated incidents he took seriously amid a hugely successful weekend. He predicted a record season. But he promised a “postmortem” on the incidents and said towns needed more auxiliary officers.

The Shore experience surely went sour for families like the lovely one from New York I interviewed in Ocean City this week, who have been coming down for generations. They found themselves huddled on a bench Saturday shortly after 9 p.m. on 10th Street with their 6-year-old and his grandparents as waves of teenagers ran from the stabbing. (A 15-year-old suffered non-life-threatening injuries.)

It was, the mom told me, “unsettling and disappointing,” a feeling she’s not used to in Ocean City, land of the fire engine kiddie rides and orange vanilla twist cones. So is this the new reality for Ocean City and other Shore towns? Or is it just another year where Memorial Day Weekend is nuts, and then things settle down?

Read my story about the fallout from the Memorial Day Weekend boardwalk mayhem here.

In other news, no sooner had we raised the question of political flags on the beach (see below for a blizzard of responses) the story broke about Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s beach house on Long Beach Island.

Now, I had suggested that we could all unite under Phillies flags this summer, but it turns out Alito threw us a curve ball.

In front of his LBI house, he had several flags, the New York Times reported, after his Shore neighbors dimed him out. An “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a historic flag carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and a Phillies flag from the 2022 postseason run. We see what you did there, Sam!

But, memo to Justice Alito, readers, as you’ll see below, overwhelmingly do not want political flags at their beach. Or at your beach house.

📮 Does the Boardwalk teen chaos sour you on coming down the Shore? Do you have a teen that you drop off on the boardwalks, and is this all overblown? Are you a teen on the boardwalk? Who is responsible? Let me know what you think and I’ll include your most interesting responses by replying to this email, or find me on Twitter or Instagram.

☀️ It’s going to feel like … spring. And it is spring. Relax. But keep scrolling.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me on X at @amysrosenberg. 📷 Follow me on Insta at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me at downtheshore@inquirer.com)

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🏑 Kelce drama: Could we love Kylie Kelce any more? No, we could not, not after she was filmed schooling a woman in the parking lot of Steve & Cookie’s restaurant in Margate over the weekend. The Kelces drove up from their Sea Isle home to have dinner, and Kylie got into it with a woman who was incensed that the Kelces declined to be photographed with her.

As Jason watches from the background, the woman tells Kylie, “I don’t care who you are, you’ll never be allowed in this town.” LOL. Kylie responds by telling the woman she’s embarrassing herself. Read Gabriela Carroll’s story here.

As I predicted, the Kelces will own the Shore this summer. I didn’t have Margate parking lot fight on my Kelce bingo card, but Kylie will always be welcome. Let’s hope their meal — did they order the veal chop Milanese? Warner’s bouillabaisse? Ugly tomato salad? — made up for the experience.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Margate apologized and said next meal’s on him.

🫐 My Unorthodox Life star Batsheva Haart has relocated to Margate, where she posted a TikTok purporting to know all about Margate. Um, no Batsheva. First of all, 7311 is in Ventnor. No local waits a half hour for coffee. Club Wa after the bars? Have you even been to Maynard’s? Try harder!

🤔 Seen in Ventnor: Trump foe and trial decoder George Conway at his ex-wife and Trump booster Kellyanne Conway’s beach house.

🛝 There’s trouble in Bart Blatstein waterpark paradise. The Philly developer’s being sued by contractors because they say they haven’t been paid for millions of work done on his $100 million Atlantic City waterpark. They want the park sold.

🌊 Take a walk on Cape May’s new accessible walkway that runs parallel to the shore on the beach itself. Typically the accessible pathways run from street to the ocean, which is great, but this one uniquely allows for a walk parallel to the ocean.

🧋Get some steamed dumplings and a bubble tea at Brigantine’s new Sunday Teahouse.

🦅 Watch eagles nesting in Cape May.

🎨 Art! Take in “Works on Paper” at LBI’s 25th Annual National Juried Competition and Exhibition at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences.

🐕 Take your dog to Seventh Street and Landis Avenue to play in Sea Isle’s new dog park.

🍻 Catch Jason Kelce at his annual bartending-for-autism fundraiser in Sea Isle.

In which Shore town were beachgoers out on the sand last Sunday morning for the first time in generations, as a Christian religious group fights the state over its regular beach closures there during Sunday services?

A. Ocean Grove

B. Ocean City

C. Lavalette

D. Asbury Park

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. Or take a guess and email us back with your answer.

This wasn’t a close call. The response overwhelmingly was against political flags at the beach. It’s stressing people out, interfering with their Shore experience. Here’s a sampling.

Dave & Wende Charles: Please, please, please people! Stop with the political provocation on the beach! We come here to relax.The minute a Trump supporter stakes their spot with a “Don’t Tread on Me” or Confederate stars and bars flag, they have declared their area as war zone.

Joanne Petrosina: If you think windmills will ruin your view … imagine political flags!

Donna Cassidy: Political flags can be extremely divisive. But everyone can get behind the Phillies!

Sharon Butt: We as a family always had an American flag with a pirate flag under it so if you went swimming, walk the beach, etc. we could always find out spot. When you are on holiday, relax and leave the politics at home.

Marianne Johnston Poisel: I’m all in favor of the First Amendment but seeing political flags at the beach raises my blood pressure. Fuels divisiveness, which is the opposite of what the shore is all about!

Suzanne Fluh: Nobody whose last name is Alito should fly flags on or near the beach unless a certain Alito finds the ethical bone in his body that would result in his recusal from cases involving the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Except maybe his Phillies flag.

Jim Phillips writes: Spent my entire childhood summers from preschool through High School age at my grandparents’ bungalow just off the beach on 39th street in Sea Isle City. Precious memories of extended family time at the shore in Sea Isle in the 1950s. Have lived the second half of my life in Alabama where our Gulf Coast provides much warmer ocean water and stunning sugar white sand beaches. But at 80, I still cherish the memories of my youthful years “Down the Shore.”

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