Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay hit with penalty for not allowing public beach access | Hacker News Reader

Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay hit with penalty for not allowing public beach access

mercurynews.com

53 pointsra716 comments

A hotel that charges $1,000 per night with 261 rooms is charged $1,600,000 for multiple years worth of violations.

If I understand the math correctly, this hotel, when fully booked, would make that much in revenue in a week.

I'm continually reminded why many companies have employees who choose to do unethical things: they'll make more money than the fine will ever amount to.

average booking rate is likely under 50% (high dollar hotels will always have rooms available), and you can bet their expenses are through the roof. $1.6MM does not represent a week of income. It is definitely a big hit.

No matter, the fine is purely penalty anyway. They aren't making extra money from denying public beach access.

I've only been going there for a few years now (for a meal now and again), but in those few years I see clearly marked public parking, clear signs that "public beach access is this way", and about half the time, the person in front of me is clearly telling the gate clerk that they are there for public access, and they are directed to the public part of the garage. So this fine is puzzling to me.

Perhaps at the times I go, heavy visitor season (3 day weekends, mother's day, etc), they follow the rules but "most" of the time they ignore them? Still, to my eye, the signage is very prominent and it's clear that public access is available.

Percentage linked penalties of gross earnings or pre-tax income is a better way to hit companies or individuals.

GPDR follows this method, and it should be continued. - if you're going to lose 4% of gross earnings by violating a law, you're much less likely to do it.

It'd probably be passed on to the consumer as a cost of doing business.

I get providing an easement, but requiring not just a parking lot, but to build it is a shakedown.

Definitely not. They agreed to it during the permitting phase. Companies are often required to build public access 'stuff' regularly - nothing different here, really.

Withholding a permit until the property owner does something not explicitly required by law is exactly the shakedown I'm speaking of.

On the other hand, the public is the property owner of the beach.

Just because you own property doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want with it. The Ritz knew there would be conditions, and they chose to agree. They could have sold the property and built a hotel elsewhere if they didn’t like the conditions.

It's not the first time they've been fined either.

Future fines were agreed to be 25k per violation/day so here's hoping that actually puts some pressure on them.

It’s not like they make 100% of their money because they violate the law, so they aren’t fined to the point of bankruptcy.

Good deal. Public access is a continual fight.

"...they face an intimidating array of hotel staff members, wealthy golfers, fences, guard stations and gates."

Wealthy golfers are intimidating? And how can you tell the wealthy golfers from the not-so-wealthy golfers? Ritz Carlton staff members are actually very friendly. Prison fences may be intimidating, but not so much these fences.

Guard station, agreed. But there is one. Not plural.

I've stayed there a couple of times for company-paid conferences. There are 'beach access' signs, but I agree it's not clear that the public can use the parking garage to access the beach.

I just find it laughable that the writer uses 'wealthy golfers' as a source of intimidation. Perhaps the public finds wealthy people intimidating in general. Is that true?

Honestly I've thought about going to use the beach there once, but I really just didn't want to deal with the hassle of people not knowing that I was allowed. It probably would have been nothing, but just having that in the back of my mind kept me from going. And I actually have the Ritz Carlton credit card and stay in their hotels with some frequency!

It's dumb, but the thought is probably there in a lot of people's minds.

Is the additional 27-acre space they're using the funds to purchase the Wavecrest Open Space that was acquired in 2017[1], or additional open space?

[1] https://www.hmbreview.com/news/nonprofits-acquire-acres-in-h...

The California Coastal Commission is like the IRS out here in California. Maybe one of the best run planning bodies in the country.

They will find out if you're not abiding by the law.

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