Boozy Dewey Beach Peers Into Its Future

Divergent Outlooks

"Hey, Claire!" someone shouted on a recent Friday night, and candidate Claire Walsh waved from a plastic lawn chair in the concrete breezeway of her house in the thick of the main drag.

She's old-school Dewey: Her dad was a bartender at the Bottle & Cork, a legendary 70-year-old rock-and-roll bar, when he met her mom. When she was growing up, there were keg parties on the beach, piles of beer cans in the sand. The Starboard opened directly across the road in 1960, and her first job, at age 8, was changing the eight-track there at breakfast. At home, sometimes they'd wake up to find that a stranger had wandered in and used a sofa to sleep off the previous night's drinking.

She knows that the packed bars are the draw for the guys from the District who rent part of the family's house, an arrangement that brings in $35,000 every summer. But Dewey has changed a lot since the crazy old days; there are more families. What is needed is more enforcement to clear troublemakers out quickly, Walsh said.

The other day, an Amish family went right by her house. Walsh laughed. "If they're booking their vacation here, how bad can it be?"

Pretty bad, some say.

"The drinking causes so many issues," said Commissioner Mike Eisenhauer. "The drunks on the streets -- the urinating on the streets -- the trash, the vandalism."

Commissioner Bob Fitzgerald said property values would go up if the town could shed its boozy image. Fitzgerald is among three Riordan supporters elected last year in a sweep that forced a mayor out of office. They campaigned on promises to fight decisions they said unfairly benefited Highway One.

Many say the real split is between Riordan and Highway One, or older and younger voters; many of the 300-plus year-round residents are retirees.

"So many people that are in office now would like to see this turn into a retirement community," said candidate Suzanne Evans, who says she doesn't want that to happen.

Resident Jerry Kernan thinks the mayor's doing a good job trying to raise revenue.

Alex Pires of Highway One said people such as Riordan come to Dewey because it's cheaper, then demand that it change. But it's the nightlife that brings the tourists who keep the town humming, he said. With a surplus every year. With no property tax.

Voters' Decision Is at Hand

Late on a Friday night, Commissioner Dale Cooke, who is running for reelection, watched a police officer follow a group of guys singing and kicking a flattened beer can.