(Michigan City, IN) - Michigan City has a growing list of beaches closed due to concerns about COVID-19 but there hasn’t been much of a spill over in New Buffalo.
New Buffalo City Manager Dave Richards said attendance at the municipal beach north of Whittaker St. bridge has been steady all summer without any noticeable spikes from elsewhere.
“We’ve not seen any substantial increase in visitors to the beach,” he said.
The closure of Washington Park Beach in Michigan City was extended by the mayor another seven days to August 21 to help prevent a spread of the virus until possible restrictions limiting crowd size are adopted by the city council.
For the very first time, the mayor also closed for seven days the remainder of the beaches at Stops 2 to 13 to the corporate boundaries of the Town of Long Beach.
Mayor Duane Parry said the freshly closed beaches despite looking private are actually on public land.
He said there have been large crowds along with lack of social distancing and masks on those beaches from people driven there by the closing of Washington Park beach the past month.
Parry said there have also been a lot of vehicles parking along Lake Shore Dr. and people especially from out of town walking across yards to reach the beaches on public right of way between the private homes and water’s edge.
Parry said he will consider reopening the beaches for the weekend if the city council on Tuesday adopts a current proposal to restrict beach access to Michigan City residents only to provide for adequate social distancing.
He said reopening Washington Park beach could be a challenge, though, because a good chunk of the workforce has left for school and the senior citizens usually hired to replace them for the rest of the season don’t want to work out of the fear of contracting the virus.
“If I can find some cheap source of labor I’ll try to open the beach partially. Hopefully, they’ll find a vaccine and this will be a once in a lifetime experience we’ll have,” Parry said.
