Surfers Angered By Surf Lessons At Ditch Plains Beach In Montauk

Regular surfers at Montauk’s famed Ditch Plains beach are angry over surf camp operators who have, they say, clogged up the renowned break with their students and instructors and created unsafe conditions for beachgoers and other surfers.

Two dozen surfers, some of whom said they’d been surfing at Ditch since the 1970s, told the Town Board on Tuesday morning that one surf company in particular has caused much consternation with the local wave riders because of what they are guessing is an abuse of the permit they were granted by the town.

The Town Board scheduled a special public meeting for this morning, August 10, at 11 a.m. to review the permit issued to CoreysWave, a Montauk-based surf lesson company. The company received a permit from the board in April 2015 and again this past spring to operate out of the easternmost parking lot at Ditch Plains, commonly referred to as “dirt lot.”

The permit allows for up to 25 people, but a letter to the town attached to the application from an attorney for the company said that surf lesson groups would contain only a maximum of five people. But the irritated surfers said the groups have been much larger.

“These people are coming down and taking over the beach,” said George Drago, a Ditch Plains veteran surfer. “They’re creating an unsafe condition, they’re belligerent.”

Mr. Drago and others said the safety concern is over the instructors pushing their students’ boards as they enter a wave to give them a burst of speed. The practice is dangerous, several people have said. He also said the instructors have taken to “hustling” surf lessons from beachgoers on the sand and in the parking lot.

Board members said that if the company was found to have overstepped the bounds of its permits, they would take action to revoke them.

“To me, this is about an operator who is interfering with the use of a public beach,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “It’s a public beach and we have a responsibility to ensure the public’s use of it.”

Shortly after Tuesday’s meeting adjourned, as many as three different groups appeared to be staging for surf lessons at the Ditch Plains dirt lot, with at least one more at one of the western lots.

Town Clerk Carole Brennan said that two companies have been issued permits to give surf lessons at Ditch Plains, CoreysWave at the eastern lot and Air & Speed at the western. MBX Surf Camp has permits to use Dolphin Drive, Marine Boulevard and Beach Lane. A company called Montauk Boardriders had a truck advertising a surf camp parked in the front spot at the easternmost Ditch Plains lot on Tuesday afternoon as well. Ms. Brennan said the company has no permit from the town.