CANNON BEACH, Ore. — A perusal of the Cannon Beach Police Department log reveals that the most common violation involves people trying to camp on public property within city limits overnight.
They run the gamut, from people crashing in recreational vehicles, trailers or cars parked on streets and sidewalks, to drifters dozing on park benches or on the beach.
“Once they’re asleep, it’s camping,” Senior Officer Joseph Bowman said. “We’ve always had campers in town; we’ll always have campers in town.”
But the summer of 2014 saw a substantial increase in incidents of unlawful camping, he said.
“For the month of August, we had 150 warnings for overnight camping,” he said. For comparison, the department issued a combined total of about 120 traffic warnings and traffic citations that same month.
The violations usually begin around 11 p.m. and continue into the early morning hours. The Second Street parking lot, Les Shirley Park and the Tolovana Wayside are among the most popular places for folks without a hotel room to settle down for the night.
First, he informed a transient named Nicholas that he wasn’t allowed to sleep on a bench outside the midtown public restrooms. The young man had wrapped himself in soiled blankets and a sleeping bag, and had stashed away a rusted shopping cart.
Unfortunately, Nicholas had run into problems with the law in Seaside and wasn’t welcome in the city. Seaside’s Helping Hands homeless shelter, which recently was forced by zoning regulations to reduce its intake by 75 percent, also was unavailable to him.
“You don’t want to stereotype anybody by any means; anybody can have problems,” Bowman said. But there are some people who head into town and cause a ruckus or commit a crime, which can render them ineligible for certain services, he said.
Transients often set up makeshift camps along the highway once they’re asked to leave the city limits, he added.
Karla had assumed that, since it was a state wayside, she could camp there. Apparently, she had missed the nearby sign saying that drivers may not park there from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
A few minutes later, the officer checked out a conversion van parked at South Hemlock and Fernwood streets. Inside were an unclothed couple, Dustin and Stephanie, who also had not paid close attention to the city’s signage.
That said, there are no signs that explicitly forbid overnight camping at Cannon Beach at the moment, Bowman said.
“So there’s not a lot telling them they can’t do it,” he said. And, in fact, there’s actually a lot of online material telling them they can do it, which makes enforcement an uphill battle. “We’ve run into several people who’ve logged onto websites that tell them that it’s OK to camp in Cannon Beach.”
Unless the lodgers have been warned multiple times, officers typically give subjects a warning and tell them where they can go, such as the north cannon viewpoint or the gravel lot just south of that.
If the officer runs into someone who’s been drinking, “In those situations, we never make them leave,” he said. “We’re not going to put someone dangerous back on the road, obviously.”
The intoxicated subject will be given permission to stay in place for the rest of the night, but they’re told that if they do it again, they’ll face a potential fine.
Overnight camping is listed as a class B violation, which carries a fine of $260; the amount may be adjusted upward or downward depending on the municipal judge’s decision.
The reasons for the ordinance — originally developed in 1986 and updated in 1989 — are essentially twofold.
First, there’s the public nuisance aspect.
Campers on the beach and in public parks often leave trash behind, including bottles in the sand. This activity poses a public health risk, as does the tendency of some overnighters to urinate and defecate on public and, sometimes, private property.
Simply put, the hotels want the revenue, and hotel managers don’t believe it’s fair for visitors to be able to camp overnight in public for free, said Cannon Beach Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn.
