Restaurateurs challenge chamber’s ‘dry town’ description

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 14:55 Written by Ann Richardson Wednesday, 22 February 2012 00:00

OCEAN CITY — The story has long been told; Ocean City was founded as a seaside Christian resort by four Methodist ministers in 1879.

But now, how the tale is spun on the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce's website is being called into question.

One side says you can't change history and the family resort should use the city's religious founding and pristine dry town image to its advantage. History, they say, should not be rewritten to advance political agendas.

The other side says the affirmation of the “Christian mindset” is insensitive to other religions and cultures and the chamber's political agenda is as obvious as its hypocrisy.

With the recently-reprised “Bring Your Own Bottle” issue, hackles are raised on both sides. It all plays out in a letter addressed to the chamber President Scott Halliday by James Yoa, representing members of the Ocean City Restaurant Association.

The letter arrived as the organization began gathering petitions for an initiative to put the BYOB question on the ballot for the May 8, 2012 municipal election.

The OCRA, the letter says, has a “strong need” to register its objections to “certain current passages and pictures” on the chamber's website.

The website notes that the family resort was founded by four Christian ministers, and “Part of the original four’s wish, that Ocean City remain a pure retreat that exemplified the Christian mindset, still remains today as strong as the cedar tree they first met under.”

“First of all, it seemed as though there was an insensitivity to other religions,” Yoa said.

He took umbrage with the chamber’s “dry town” emphasis.

“Historically, Ocean City is a dry town,” the website says. “There is no public drinking anywhere on the island. Some residents and tourists alike seem to appreciate this law that sets the island apart from any of its surrounding towns.”

The website goes on to say that, “being a family beach, Ocean City is a dry city, meaning that no alcohol is sold on the island and drinking on the beach or boardwalk is prohibited.

“Ocean City, NJ is one of the few dry resort towns on the Jersey Shore, an element many of our vacationing families appreciate,” the site states.

This, Yoa says, is “unnerving” to OCRA members, who are spearheading the BYOB initiative.

Halliday said that the chamber’s board of directors had yet to meet to discuss the issue and would address the OCRA’s concerns at its next meeting. The Ocean City native said the OCRA was trying to “change a huge cornerstone of what Ocean City is.”

“We have to be very careful; our history has been cast for decades,” Halliday said. “They are asking us to misrepresent what the city is about, and that would be inconsistent with what has been reported, printed and sold to the public for over a century.”

“Dry town,” he said, is the reason the city rises above the competition; website optimization indicates that “dry town” is a key phrase, an “asset” for the family resort.

Local historian and author Fred Miller, a past president of the Ocean City Historical Museum and member of US Life Saving Station 30, said history speaks for itself. The “Christian mindset” opposed by the OCRA was the motivation of founders – Wesley, Ezra and James Lake and William Burrell.

He said the ministers envisioned a community that would afford religious privileges, sanctuary and healthful recreation, but they were also businessmen; developing the island could be a profitable real estate venture.

Miller noted that Rev. William B. Wood wrote in an 1880 Association Report that “our great leading objectives have been moral and religious, not secular. If God sends us financial success while maintaining moral integrity, we shall accept it thankfully at his hands.”

“This is a historical fact,” he said. “You can't change history; the history of Ocean City is not meant to be offensive to any other religion.

“I don't see the hypocrisy,” Miller said. “We don't allow public drinking. People are allowed to drink in their own homes, but not in public and that sets us apart. We should revere, and appreciate what our founders did for us, like the U.S. Constitution. Otherwise we’d be just like Atlantic City.

“The fact that we are a dry town has always been a marketing tool, this is nothing new,” Miller said. “We are unique. We have to protect history. What they object to – that it was founded with the ‘Christian mindset’ – well, it says it on the tree the founders sat under. Ocean City was founded as a Christian resort, it is what it is. You can’t run away from it because you don’t like it.

“Methodist ministers created Ocean City, and we’ve done pretty well all these years honoring their vision,” he said. “A lot of people visit here and live here because Ocean City is what it is.”

Ocean City, he said, as always been “extremely welcoming” of anyone, including people of other faiths.

“There are so many things to get involved in,” he said. “Ocean City is an exceptionally welcoming town.”

Historian John Loeper, president of US Life Saving Station 30 and a member of the museum’s board, says city councilmen in 1917 “reaffirmed” the founder’s mindset after the Honorable Simon Lake, father of founders Wesley, James and Ezra Lake, died.

Simon Lake was a prosperous famer and fruit grower and a member of the state legislature and was actively involved with his sons in the creation and development of Ocean City.

“Council voted to memorialize Simon Lake, and they unanimously passed a resolution making Ocean City officially ‘America’s Greatest Family Resort’ upon his death,” he said. “They were very careful back in the day using the word resort. Resort meant Atlantic City, smoking, drinking, bars, night life, gambling and prostitution. They wanted to set Ocean City apart from places like Atlantic City, where anything goes.

“Being a family resort meant something entirely different,” Loeper said. “Vices were not welcome here. A resort was wide open, wild. Being a family resort meant Ocean City was a safe place to bring children. They were very, very careful with the wording for a reason. That’s history, and it’s not a whole lot different today.”

“They wanted to make sure that Ocean City wasn’t associated with any of that,” he said. “This is our branding. The Lake Brothers gave churches of any denomination free land, to build a church. It was not just Christian, any church. They embraced religion, they welcomed everyone.”

The OCRA also took the chamber to task for picturing people drinking champagne on a link to the Flander’s Hotel.

“There are marvelous pictures of tables set with champagne and people drinking in large groups,” the OCRA stated.

“You are allowed to drink at private parties,” Miller said. “You are not allowed to drink in public.”

 

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