INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. -- Angry beachgoers confronted a homeowner on Indian Rocks Beach after he erected a fence around his property.

New Florida law went into effect July 1

Allows beachfront owners to erect barriers on beachfront property

It means beachgoers must walk around barriers into high tide areas

READ the law on the Florida Senate website

"What if everybody did this like this?" yelled Druce Aarie, a tourist visiting relatives from Santa Cruz, California.

The outburst was directed at Jack Tenney, 24, who has lived on the beach all his life. Tenney put up the barrier in accordance with a new state law that went into effect July 1.

"Every one of these people can shut down the beach, right?" asked Aarie. "So how is anyone supposed to go to the beach?"

Tenney says he is just following the law.

"The state law was put in place saying if you own beachfront property, you're allowed to make it private property," he said.

That law Tenney refers to lets homeowners restrict access to the area between the high tide and their property line. The measure forces beachgoers to walk on wet sand and in some cases, high water, if they want to pass by a home that put up a similar fence.

Mike Honcho, a longtime Indian Rocks Beach resident, saw Tenney's fence during his morning walk. A Spectrum Bay News 9 camera caught Honcho wagging his finger at Tenney and shaking his head in disgust.

"I was just in disbelief that somebody could fence off a public beach," Honcho said. "The city screwed up because nobody stopped the state law."

Critics of the law fear other homeowners across the state will put up similar barriers blocking access to their beachfront properties.

When asked about enforcing the law, a spokeswoman with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said that will be decided on a "case-by-case basis" and added that "no citations have been issued."

Tenney did not get a permit to put up the fence, but said he plans to remove the fence by 10 a.m. on July 3. It's unclear if a permit is required to put up a fence, even though state law allows it.

"We still are allowed to declare this as private property and we can still politely ask people to leave if we chose to," Tenney said.