Wrightsville has long been described as an iconic beach town.
Labels of distinction are frequently given the town, the latest: Thrilllist included Wrightsville as one of its Top 14 Best Small Towns in America and in April, Surf Collective NYC named one of five local surf shops among the World’s Top 22 Surf Shops.
There is a reason why so many sporting events want to make use of the town.
As the old beach town cottages are sold and torn down to make way for McMansions, the iconic is harder and harder to find; still, the flavor of a small beach town does thrive. Wrightsville, with its flowering shrubs in bloom this time of year, and a steady breeze blowing most days, is certainly a fantastic place to live, work and play.
It is hard to imagine the quantity of people who will head for Wrightsville this holiday weekend, but you can bet traffic on and to the island will be bumper to bumper, and since all parking spaces on most summer weekends are taken by the 11 to noon hour, and it would be foolish to expect anything different. A steady stream of vehicles will begin lapping the town in search of the elusive parking spot before the noon bell rings. Driver anxiety will probably be high.
Sidewalks and the Loop will be packed, hopefully only with humans. A young man with a good-sized, over-heated white dog, spotted Tuesday as the temp was up almost to 90, should have left that distressed pet at home.
By early morning on Saturday the parking at the Wildlife boat ramp will be slam packed and drivers of vehicles with trailers will begin the age-old summer at Wrightsville dance, as they search for a place to stick their rig and walk back to get out onto the sparkling waterways and Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Local law enforcement from multiple agencies is geared up for the influx of boaters and those foolish enough to hope to get away with boating while intoxicated. Ditto for those who intend to imbibe and then get behind the wheel of a land vehicle. With certainty there will be checkpoints on and off the water.
The North Lumina Avenue scene once the sun sets? Well, expect it to be over the top. Law enforcement will beef up its presence in the notorious bar district — as the weeks have passed, the scene has grown steadily more dangerous. No one will envy the popo out there this weekend.
Ocean rescue guards will take the stands Friday, ready for lost children, possible rip tides and the ever-obnoxious beachgoer bent on ruining everyone’s day. Remember: no pets, glass, balloons, cigs, fireworks or booze. And leave it better than you found it.
The best weekend plan? Shop before Friday afternoon, be where you are going before midmorning and stay there. Plan to leave extra early for Sunday worship. Expect delays — delays getting out of the driveway, and parking lots — delays at the bridge, the boat ramp, long lines in the stores and waits to eat in restaurants; there is a reason all those entities name Wrightsville as such a stellar place. An inordinate number of people who live west of the drawbridge will want a taste of life on the beach this weekend.
Tuesday night, making the turn onto Wrightsville Avenue in the shadow of the hulking new apartment towers on the Babies Hospital property, I wondered what sort of impact all those new neighbors will have on the infrastructure of the beach town where they will pay not one penny in property taxes, but make good use of the services. Same thoughts apply for the apartment buildings shortly to go up at the Galleria site.
Before long the full-time residents of Wrightsville could be outnumbered — a sobering thought as this Memorial Day weekend kicks off.
In the meantime, New Hanover County’s beach town mayors issued an ultimatum: the county and city of Wilmington must contribute sand dollars, or they won’t sign a new agreement.
Pumping sand onto the beach town beaches, dubbed last year by officials as storm damage mitigation or reduction, protects municipal infrastructure and the high-dollar coastal real estate that makes up the real property tax base, as well as a tourism industry that makes cash registers sing in the Cape Fear region, flowing sales tax revenues to government coffers.
The feds have repeatedly indicated the substantial pot of money it contributes to North Carolina’s sand program is drying up. Under the current funding formula, the federal government pays 65 percent of the cost of approved sand replenishment programs, while the state puts up 17.5 percent. An interlocal agreement set to expire June 30 obligates the beach towns to match the state for the remaining 17.5 percent share, but that share is drawn from the tax levied on short term accommodation rentals, mostly vacation rentals, aka the heads-in-beds tax.
New Hanover County and the City of Wilmington contribute nada to sand. Carolina Beach and Kure Beach have notified the county they will not sign a new agreement if the terms do not change to include the county and perhaps the City of Wilmington.
If put to a vote, would New Hanover County and City of Wilmington taxpayers say yes, they have a vested interest in replenishing beach sand, and yes to sharing the cost from their municipal pots of room occupancy taxes?
It would be a good idea if some entity produced a study to show the impact of all that sand to the local economy. Everyone from the sandman to the governor and congressmen tout the tourism industry in this state, but surprisingly no hard number can be ascribed to the impact of the county’s beaches on the local and state prosperity.
However, pop down to any of the county’s beaches this weekend and it will be pretty darn obvious.
