By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – There have been complaints about battery-powered bicycles speeding along the boardwalk, but there is no speed limit on the boardwalk.
At last week’s Ocean City Council meeting, Councilman Keith Hartzell noted there has been pushback on allowing “electric bikes” on the boardwalk and some are calling for them to be banned. He said he hated to see them banned because it is probably “just a few people” riding recklessly, but wondered if the police could enforce the speed limit.
City solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said there is no speed limit on the boardwalk and that state law requires police to treat them as regular bicycles. “They are defined by how fast they go,” she said. “There is no speed limit because they are relatively new.”
Hartzell asked if the police chief could work to establish a speed limit to slow things down because “the boardwalk should be about family fun.”
“Enforcement may be difficult,” McCrosson said, because it would be hard to gauge how fast the battery-powered bicycles are going.
When Hartzell suggested enforcing “reckless riding,” city Business Administrator George Savastano said he would talk with the police chief. “Nip it in the bud,” Hartzell said.
Bulkheads not by the bay
Hartzell also brought photographs to show where some property owners were putting bulkheads around their property even though they aren’t near the bay.
“There are a number of places in town where people are bulkheading their yards and they aren’t on the water,” he said, noting he has been working with Mayoral Aide Michael Allegretto on the matter.
He said while people are protecting their own properties from water, some of the bulkheads are forcing water onto neighboring properties instead of funneling it into storm drains.
“I want to find out why people are doing this and if neighbors have a say,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Hartzell said he had talked to neighbors of one property with the bulkheads and they said they were surprised to see them after hearing the neighbor was just putting up a fence. “People on the other sides are irate,” he said.