Last week, The Mirror ran two articles reporting on recent happenings along the town’s beaches. This month’s failed Labor Day white party and the implementation of guest passes sent waves of confusion and anger through the student community. At the same time, Fairfield University seniors began participating in the year’s weekly beach clean ups. Since then, there has also been increased activity on the beach, due in part to the senior Naut parties, which are run with knowledge from the university. With a new semester and new beach rules, how are residents in the town of Fairfield responding?
To better understand the perspectives of town residents, The Mirror spoke to Lucas Scholhamer, who lives in the beach area with his wife and daughter. He recently became president of the Fairfield Beach Residents Association, an organization of people living in town.
According to their website, FBRA aims to “represent and implement the interests and desires of the membership in maintaining and improving Fairfield Beach and vicinity; promote cooperation among the owners and renters; represent the common interests of the membership in relation to governmental authorities, and provide for the mutual assistance, enjoyment and quality of life for all people residing in the Fairfield Beach area.” One of their initiatives is resident/student relations.
Scholhamer describes the current relationship between Fairfield students and other beach residents as “complex.”
“Most full-time residents I know aren’t actually anti-student,” Sholhamer says. “And just like students, they simply want to enjoy the beach neighborhood that they have worked so hard to live in. But over the last several years things have gotten out of hand and many residents have had their property rights violated or their safety threatened by student parties. I think everybody is hoping for a reset, where we all agree to enjoy the beach but in a way that doesn’t keep others from enjoying it.”
Part of this reset, at least for some residents, has included the new policy of a limited number of guest passes for each student house. Scholhamer explains that property owners along the shoreline, including those that rent to Fairfield students, control who can access the portion of the beach they own.
“Property owners—including the owners of student rentals—can control the access to their properties and beaches, which are private to the average high tide line,” he says. “Lantern Point is actually subject to a legal injunction from a past lawsuit that limits the size of gatherings on this property, and student gatherings in recent years have been in violation of this legal ruling.”
Scholhamer also brought up residents’ concerns over the possible legal challenges that he says can arise from large events like the “white-out” or SantaCon. He points to litter, ambulances and fights among the residents as concerns and says that the residents face the consequences of students breaking the law, even if they do so accidentally.
As for the rest of this year’s events, residents remain concerned about the prospect of large student parties near their houses.
“We all saw how bad SantaCon was last year…” Scholhamer said. “We also worry that the University doesn’t do enough to educate students about some of the town’s key laws—that residential areas of the beach are private property above the high tide line, and that Fairfield’s town noise ordinance is now in effect 24 hours, as is actually required by Connecticut’s state law.”
Many residents have these concerns, yet others believe that students living at the beach are generally unproblematic in their behavior. Among these is Norma Jean Maltese, a Fairfield homeowner who rents to students. Acknowledging many of her fellow residents’ concerns about students partying, she responds: “So what?” In her view, the safety of students is what’s most important.
“I have nothing but good things to say,” Maltese said of her student renters. She added, “After a while, they become family.”
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