An Imperfect Storm Brewing at Stearns Park

[XLFD]

Nobody likes to be lectured about their lack of common sense, particularly a public body that has a history of not having that commodity when it comes to running the City of Ludington.  But when you see people losing their lives needlessly in the waters at Stearns Beach and the only response by city leaders is to recognize beachgoers that risked their own lives in heroic efforts that fell short, lectures need to happen.  When the same amount of money used to support one aimless program will support another program that will allow for water rescues to happen, lectures need to happen.  When the city decides that it's wise for their contractors to sell alcohol at the beach contrary to law and set us all up for additional liability issues, lectures need to happen.

At the July 28th meeting of the Ludington City Council, they received their first of what should be many lectures to come.

XLFD:  "Last summer, a man died from drowning at Stearns Beach after two weeks of being in critical but stable condition in a Grand Rapids hospital.  The day after this council celebrated four heroes that retrieved him, Christopher Marsh was pronounced dead.  Two weeks ago, a young woman was also airlifted to Grand Rapids in critical but stable condition, similar incident, same location.  If she never recovers, will you care?  Will you wonder what her name is?  Will you back your police chief's decision to withhold the name and update the medical status, just like he did last year with Christopher Marsh?

Chelsey and future victims of the city's negligence deserve better than this.  The city has in its possession a lifesaving robot named EMILY, but it was never deployed in either of the two drowning events.  This is not surprising as it requires trained lifeguards to keep it nearby to deploy it with immediate effect to rescue a drowning individual.  EMILY was not used in either drowning event because the focus of the feckless beach patrol was not on the beach, but elsewhere.  As it is, EMILY has been relegated by this council of elected representatives to the task of recovering people dead in the water, and the city is extremely lucky in that would-be rescuers haven't also become victims of the city ignoring this hazard.  

A lifeguard program becomes particularly relevant this year, as the city's concessionaires are providing alcoholic beverages to beachgoers and letting them wander down to the water, in violation of the city code while beach patrol look the other way, but-- not towards the lake.  This is a liability that you should acknowledge, rather than claiming lifeguards operating with a specialized robot to rescue lives is a liability.   Embrace your humanity."  [END comment]

Our first two pictures show what we currently have in terms of 'beach safety' in Ludington.  The first shows a beach patrolman chatting with another fellow, after having done that for at least a full hour before that; the topic was basketball when I first noticed them and when I finally left the area.  The patrolman's back was to the beach almost the full time, his vehicle and equipment (far right, seen above) was completely out of his sight (behind a shed) and away from the beach that whole time.  The next afternoon, the beach and lake were very busy, but I never saw a beach patrol unit, but I did see several folks in the water, some outside the marked swimming area.  

Just one week ago the South Bend Tribute out of Indiana reported:  "Lake Michigan is the deadliest lake in America, statistics show. Yet, there are no lifeguards at 99% of Michigan's public beaches, all while coastal towns rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in beach parking fees, and Michigan collects millions more in vehicle park permits and billions in tourism dollars.  None of that money, however, is being spent on lifeguarding a lake that has claimed more than 640 lives over the last 15 years."

After proponents of lifeguards tell us that Michigan's grand experiment of going without lifeguards has failed the article notes:  "Perhaps nowhere else is the lifeguard issue more heated than in the popular Lake Michigan beach town of South Haven, where three grieving families are suing the city over the drowning deaths of three teenagers in two separate lawsuits. In both cases, the families said they believe lifeguards could have saved their loved ones' lives, while maintaining that statistics back them up: Since getting rid of lifeguards in 2001, South Haven has had 12 drowning deaths, compared with only two drowning deaths occurring in the 40 years when lifeguards were used."

We were told by our former City Attorney Richard Wilson that Ludington's wildly successful lifeguard program was too much of a liability and it was ended after 2009 in John Henderson's last term as mayor.  Henderson had built his candidacy a decade earlier by vowing to bring back lifeguards for good, but the bigger liability we find is actually not having lifeguards.  Wilson's law firm was also retained by the City of Manistee, who did not have lifeguards and were obviously aware of how many people avoided the lakeshore of Manistee to swim in the protected beach in Ludington.  Over the last decade, the Michigan Supreme Court has twice ruled in favor of governments that got sued over drowning deaths involving lifeguards, making liability practically a non-issue.

The article notes that governmental immunity has not saved the City of South Haven from liability, with rulings that should make Michigan municipalities rethink their stance on swimming at your own risk.  And now Ludington is using their beach as a catalyst for selling alcoholic beverages to tourists in order for their contractors to turn bigger profits.

A mother in swimwear buys an overpriced alcoholic 'beach bev' from city concessionaires at Stearns while her daughter holds her wallet in this July 2025 photo

A small shed on the west side of the southern concession stand allows Stearns Beach to now sell alcoholic beverages.  State laws apply to the selling of alcohol, these are often detailed on their licensing of vendors, as do city laws, which have been fairly longstanding and unchanged since the council have allowed alcohol sales on their premises with support back in 2024.  Those who buy 'beach bevs' see this in front of them once they come out of the mini-shed:

What do those blue signs around the patio say:

We have to take our recently purchased canned 'beach bev' off the patio and off the premises, meaning we can take it to the beach, walk the breakwall, take it over to the shuffleboard court or picnic area, etc.  Anyplace in the park where it is not otherwise excluded from, such as the playground area.  This is explained primarily in section 38-75 of the city code, so if we assume the concessionaires are otherwise following all of the state edicts, we still get a couple of Ludington code violations.

Subsection 2 of the above law states such alcohol sales can only happen in connection to an established event open to the general public and the profits therefrom given back to the event, "raising funds" for it.  This is not happening; it's for profit.  But the bigger deal is subsection 7:

"Service and consumption of alcoholic liquor shall be done only in a specific area designated in the permit, the boundaries of which shall be marked and defined by a fence or other enclosure as required by the permit. No person shall be allowed to leave such enclosure in possession of such alcoholic liquor."

The signs actually command you to buy your alcoholic liquor (all beach bevs are that except for the non-alcohol alternatives at the bottom of the menu sign) and consume it in an enclosed area.  This is impossible.  The selling area is not within any sort of enclosure; it is on the patio-- but you cannot drink on the patio or on the premises of where you were served the beverage.  

The city council has the means of fixing these problems by tweaking the law, but they have done nothing with the prevailing law in the two years this has been a controversy.  We have no problem with people bringing their own beer and spirits (in cans) to the beach, it's within the law.  And should they go into the water and their drunkenness leads to other problems or their demise, it's all on them, not the rest of us.  

But if they purchase alcoholic beverages from city concessionaires, we all run into a host of liabilities, including dram shop liability and liabilities caused by having inconsistent laws as noted.  What if the next 18-year-old girl that becomes a victim of Stearns Beach is found to have received some of the city's firewater using a fake ID or an intermediary, consumed it before she swam, and her family sued the city?   They would have a much stronger case because the city is not enforcing their own laws and selling beverages that were a contributing cause of the incident without having an enclosed area. 

This year's victim was just having a fun swim with her friends but ventured into a hazardous area where a lifeguard would have likely whistled her away from before anything happened.

Lastly, I asked through a FOIA request to the LPD for the incident report that went with the July 14th drowning event.  I got the following report, which covered up the name of the victim and some of the others involved in an inconsistent way.  Police Chief Christopher Jones has gone out of his way in his two press releases to cover up her identity and her actual status.  We found her identity through rigorous research; she is a student athlete from Kenowa Hills named Chelsey Nicholson who just graduated this year.  We should all know whether she recovers or not, we encourage all to pray for her recovery, or if you are not so religiously inclined to at least send her good vibes.  Knowing her identity helps direct those her way, helps the connection, helps those who are closest with her cope better if her status never improves.

Chelsey Nicholson will need everything she can get to recover from a critical status after a drowning event, and we have yet to see any change in that status in our investigations 17 days after the fact.  It hits deep in our heart and moistens our cheeks that this never had to happen here if not for the total disconnect our city council has adopted for our own people and our tourists in the realm of beach safety.  

Instead, innocent bystanders and vacationers have become fill-ins for lifeguards, risking their own lives to help struggling swimmers, with some dying in the process.  An expensive, top of the line, life-saving robot sits gathering dust, tourists are quietly bypassing Ludington due to safety concerns as they see beach body counts continue to rise here, even when city officials go out of their way to hide their shame.   Meanwhile, our city councilors remain as silent as Christopher Marsh and Chelsey Nicholson on the matter at hand.  We need more lecturers at these council meetings.