Spring is in the air. The days are getting longer, the sun is shining and the crocuses are blooming.

You know what that means? Yup. It means more battles over beach access.

These battles have been going on at the Jersey Shore for as long as I can remember. The battle lines are quite different than what many people believe.

The common misconception is that the locals are conspiring to keep the bennies off their beaches. More often than not, the opposite is the case.

For most of the year, we locals have unimpeded access to the beach. Then comes Memorial Day, and a bunch of bennies move into their summer homes and start trying to order us around.

This is particularly hard on us surfers. Once the lifeguard stands go up, it can be difficult to find a beach where surfing is not banned. When you do so, it’s usually a private beach.

My buddy Mike and I used to frequent an unguarded stretch of beach in Brick Township. We’d walk right past the “No Trespassing” signs. The members of the local homeowners association would start yelling at us in those grating North Jersey accents.

“Hey soifah! You can’t walk tru dere,” they’d yell. “This is a private beach!”

We’d keep walking. It may be a private beach. But it’s not a private ocean. That’s been true since the time of the Roman Emperor Justinian, who decreed that all citizens can have access to tidal waters.

It remains a mystery to those summer people, however. I went by that stretch of beach the other day and saw signs at the beach entrances that read, “Private Property, No Trespassing.”

I walked up to the beach. There I saw something that should cause our legislators to finally get out their history books and law books. That was the massive sand-replenishment project done in the wake of Hurricane Sandy by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Taxpayers from all over the United States of America have paid to improve the beaches of New Jersey,” said state Sen. Bob Smith. “It’s public money and the public should have access.”

The Middlesex County Democrat sponsored a bill to accomplish that end. Last week it passed both houses. Gov, Phil Murphy is expected to sign it before summer, said Smith.

But will those signs and similar ones all along the coast come down after the bill takes effect?

“I think the towns and the state have an obligation and a duty to make sure those gates are open and people have access to the beach,” said Smith. “They took the money from the federal government on the understanding the beaches would be available.”

But who will enforce that right? It’s hard to tell, said Tim Dillingham of the American Littoral Society, which pushes for coastal access, primarily for fishermen.

The society is in court fighting with the town of Deal in Monmouth County, another perennial trouble spot. Access to the ocean there is available mainly at the spots where streets end at the water. But the town officials are planning to sell one street end to a homeowner, he said.

“The idea that towns could not abandon street ends did not make it into this bill.” Dillingham said.

When I ran that by Smith, he said closing off street ends goes against the intent of the bill. And the bill would require town officials to protect access when they update their master plans, he said.

The bill also has many provisions that require public access whenever new projects are proposed along rivers and bayfronts, he said. So that’s an improvement.

But it lacks a feature that is key to access in the state where I first mastered the art of surfing. Hawaii News Now recently ran an article about homeowners there who plant shrubbery on the access paths to try and keep people from reaching the water.

The article offered this advice: “If you come across a stretch of beach that is obstructed by vegetation or anything else that prevents your public access, you’re asked to call the state’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands at (808) 587-0399.”

That would be a big improvement. I’d heartily recommend that the next round of legislation include an ombudsman who will inform the homeowners about the legacy of Justinian.

Smith said that improved enforcement will follow as soon as this bill gets enacted.

“This is the consensus bill,” he said. “Now we’re gonna go into the harder stuff.”

That promises to be hard indeed. States like Hawaii, California and Florida have a much easier job of it. Their beaches have a steady stream of people year-round.

Here in New Jersey we have 42 weeks of peace and quiet interrupted by 10 weeks of collective insanity.

Let the brawling begin.

ADD - YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK:

Below is a video of the steel wall the state erected running from the bottom half of Mantoloking through Brick Beach after Sandy. The private homeowners to the north in Bay Head solved that problem long ago by erecting a stone sea wall at their own expense. When the stones are exposed by storms in winter they make the beach look like a beach in Maine. The steel wall makes it look like a junkyard in Jackson.

This wall was recently covered with sand, again at the taxpayer’s expense. So there is no excuse for walling it off from use by the people who paid for it.

In the two towns to the north, Bay Head and Mantoloking, all beach access paths are open to anyone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If the state is going to pass a beach-access law, at the very minimum it should state that all access points must be open to all comers. There are similar locked gates in Point Pleasant Beach and other towns.