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HALF MOON BAY, Calif. – A luxury hotel in Northern California has been fined $ 1.6 million for restricting access to public beaches.
The settlement between the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay and the California Coastal Commission on Thursday is the second largest of its kind for the commission.
Lisa Haage, head of law enforcement at the Commission, told CNN that she hoped these penalties would send a message. "$ 1.6 million is enough to make them really careful and I really think they will improve their behavior," said Haage.
When it opened in 2001, the hotel agreed to provide 25 easily identifiable public parking spaces and access to the beach through the hotel. Over the years, the Commission has received numerous reports that the hotel did not meet these requirements.
"If you stopped at the Ritz-Carlton car park, you would not be welcome or think you'd have a nice public beach there," said Jennifer Savage, California Policy Officer for the Surfrider Foundation, an organization that environmental.
The reports presented to the Commission included incidents in which visitors were denied access to the public parking or saw the land used by the hotel valet service. "I once went there and saw a public parking sign saying literally nowhere," Haage said.
Haage noted that signage may seem like a minor problem, but added that without this signage, people did not know that they had the right to be there. "If you do not know you have a right, you can not exercise it," Haage said.
The hotel was sentenced to lighter sentences in 2004, 2007 and 2011, but according to a recent report by Commission staff, the violations continued. The latter regulation includes a much heavier fine, as well as stipulated penalties and an order asking the hotel to conduct a media campaign to raise public awareness that it has access to the beach. The hotel will also have to audit its single-use plastics. Haage told CNN that this stipulation is a new and unique approach to limit the hotel's environmental impact.
The board will donate a large portion of the $ 1.6 million to a local land conservation group to acquire land just north of the hotel. The group will use the field to widen the public beach and the California coastal path.
CNN asked the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay for advice.
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