A gate to the beach completed last month at the end of Tropical Drive protects a pathway that had been the subject of a dispute between drive residents and their Turtle Beach condominium neighbors. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Jane Musgrave
A long-running feud between Ocean Ridge neighbors over beach access appears to be over.
In May, the finishing touches were put on a 4-foot-high wooden gate that gives Tropical Drive residents exclusive use of a 5-foot-wide strip of sand at the end of the narrow street that leads to the ocean.
The fence, which cost $800 according to town records, is the only concrete evidence that residents of Tropical Drive and Turtle Beach condominium have reached a truce in the battle that began in 2022 when the 26-unit complex put up “No Trespassing” signs on its swath of the beach outside its gated entrance. The signs inflamed residents of Tropical Drive.
Tropical Drive resident Debbie Cooke, who helped coordinate the project, said she and the other roughly four dozen property owners and renters who live along the street just want to enjoy the beach.
“We need to be assured all of our residents and residents on Tropical Drive will be able to continue to use the path they always did without fighting and without looking at signs,” she said in a text.
Channeling poet Robert Frost, who wrote that “good fences make good neighbors,” Cooke voiced hope that the gate will end years of acrimony.
“We hope this leads to being friendly neighbors with the residents of Turtle Beach and live happily ever after,” she said.
Tropical Drive vs. condo
Cooke’s upbeat view belies the stormy history between the neighbors and the fact that it took a lawsuit and an ingenious real estate purchase to end the dispute. Along the way, insults were hurled, an arrest was made and, under pressure from Ocean Ridge residents, the Town Commission voted to change the code to clarify the number, location and appearance of signs on the beach.
The actions that led to the gate began in March 2022 when Tropical Drive property owner Bryan Joffe paid $40,000 for a strip of land that leads from that street to the beach.
The purchase came as emotions were running high about the signs Turtle Beach posted on the beach.
Part of the land Joffee purchased borders the back entrance to the condo’s property and has long been used by Turtle Beach for garbage pickup.
Months after buying the land, Joffe turned it over to Sunrise Beach LLC, a newly formed group of Tropical Drive residents.
In early 2023, Sunrise Beach sued Turtle Beach, accusing it of trespassing on the recently acquired land. It asked for an injunction, stopping the complex from continuing to use the property for trash pickup.
The condominium responded by filing a countersuit against Sunrise Beach. It claimed Turtle Beach had used the land for years, giving it what essentially amounted to squatter’s rights. It called the use of the land for garbage pickup “essential.”
Last summer, the suit was settled for undisclosed terms, court records show. Mark Feinstein, a lawyer who is president of the Turtle Beach Condominium Association, didn’t return a phone call for comment. The association’s attorney, Spencer Sax, declined comment as did attorney Robert Hartsell, who represented Sunrise Beach. Cooke declined to offer specifics.
It’s not unusual for legal settlements to include confidentiality clauses, preventing those involved from revealing the terms.
But, while the property suit was settled, one more is pending.
Libel suit unresolved
Feinstein in 2023 sued Sean Currie for libel after the then 35-year-old who lived with his parents on Tropical Drive posted a comment on the town’s Facebook page accusing Feinstein of engaging in a bizarre sexual act.
Currie had strong feelings about the “No Trespassing” signs Turtle Beach posted on the beach. In January 2022, he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief after police said he grabbed one of the signs and threw it. The charge was dismissed after Currie agreed to pay $300 to replace it.
The libel case was scheduled to be tried before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Maxine Cheesman in early May. However, court records indicate no trial took place.
As in the property case, all of the attorneys involved declined comment. Whether a settlement is in the works is unknown.
Early in the litigation, Feinstein offered to settle the lawsuit for undisclosed terms. When the offer wasn’t accepted, he unsuccessfully sought punitive damages, which could have drastically increased the amount he could be awarded.
In court papers, an attorney for Currie said the two lawsuits were both were spurred by the uproar over beach access.
Just as Sunrise Beach sued Turtle Beach in response to the condo’s “No Trespassing” signs, Currie blasted Feinstein on social media because he felt strongly that the signs were wrong, wrote attorney Douglas Allison, asking that the suit be thrown out.
Feinstein claims he was defamed when Currie publicly accused him of a “heinous, despicable act.” But, Allison said, Currie used the term only to emphasize his belief that Ocean Ridge officials and Turtle Beach “are unlawfully erecting signs on the public beach that are washing away in storm surge and causing pollution.”
Courts have consistently ruled that such political speech is protected. “One can readily see that (Currie) was simply using impassioned, loose, and figurative language to enhance the town’s awareness of the issue,” Allison wrote.
“While it may have been ‘vulgar’ or ‘gross,’ no reasonable person could ever view Currie’s insult of Feinstein in context and conclude that it was meant literally rather than as an epithet or rhetorical insult.”
While much has changed, Feinstein has said he wouldn’t back down. “I’m not litigious,” he told The Coastal Star last year. “I don’t want his money. The whole idea is to let him know his actions have consequences.”
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