By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer

MARGATE – An incident at Ray Scott’s Dock Aug. 9 where owner Robin Scott was cited for having unregistered boats and her renters were ordered back to dock ended up in court last week.

Scott and her attorney, Rob Herman, filed and were granted a restraining order Aug. 15 by Judge Joseph Kane of the Chancery Division of Superior Court that prohibits the Margate Police Marine Unit from interfering with her boat rental business for anything other than a safety violation.

That order was overturned Aug. 20 by Judge William Todd when Margate Police, represented by Margate Solicitor Mary Siracusa, filed an order to show cause.

The parties were instructed to participate in a management conference that will be conducted Tuesday, Sept. 2 by order of Todd.

It all started Saturday, Aug. 9, which dawned with picture perfect weather. But that is about where it ended for Scott. She bought tackle for customers and gassed up her fleet of 16 boats in anticipation of a banner rental weekend. With a fishing season that lasts only a few months, weekends are where the money is, and Scott had planned for that weekend to be the same. What she got instead was a store filled with angry customers vowing never to rent again.

Scott operates the only boat rental along the back bay, and one of her renters was stopped by the Margate Marine Unit for exceeding the speed limit in a no-wake zone Saturday morning, Aug. 9.

When Marine Patrol Officers Sgt. Fred Feliciano and Ptl. John Oaks stopped the boat for speeding they discovered that it had an expired registration. They directed the boat operator back to the dock.

In an interview last week, Scott said she was caught completely off guard by the expiration and took full blame for failing to get her fleet of boats registered by the July 31 expiration date. She told the officers that all of her rental boats out on the water would also have expired registrations. The other renters were instructed by the Marine Unit to take the boats back to the dock.

Scott said she was unable to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Egg Harbor Township to register the boats immediately because fleet rental is only handled Monday through Friday. She asked the police to give her a ticket and allow her to continue to rent the boats for the remainder of the weekend, as renters had already paid her and others had reserved boats for Sunday. 

She then told the renters they could go back out on the water and continue fishing.

Margate Police Chief David Wolfson came to the dock and told Scott the boats could not be operated without current registrations because it was a safety issue. The customers were sent back to the dock once again by the Marine Unit, and some, who did not want to return to the dock, were told that if they did not comply with the directive they would be given summonses.

Scott said she refunded the rental payments, but customers left angry because they could not spend the day as they had planned.

“I would think I am out about $2,000, but the worst part is that I have lost customers and that is damage I can never recover,” she said.

Wolfson said in a phone interview Wednesday that he had no choice but to have the unregistered boats removed from the bay, once the problem was discovered.

Scott said she is being unfairly targeted by the officers for what was an admitted mistake on her part and one that she remedied as soon as possible after it was brought to her attention. She was able to complete the registration for her boats Monday, Aug. 11.

Scott said she filed the restraining order so that she would not lose any more business or customers for the short fishing season that remains. She claimed that the Marine Unit was being selective in its enforcement of violations.

Wolfson said the only reason his officers were involved in the first place was because a rental customer exceeded the speed limit and was subsequently found to be operating a rental boat without a valid registration.

The flounder season ends Sept. 7 and the boat rental business will slow dramatically, but it will most likely be long after that date that the issues of Aug. 9 will be settled.