CHICAGO — Erin Page and her friends were enjoying some fun in the sun last weekend at Foster Beach ... until two police officers came over and demanded everyone's ID.
Page, a bartender, wasn't drinking. She was sitting on a beach towel sipping coconut water. But two of the seven other people she was with were drinking beer, a regular summertime activity on the lakefront for many Chicagoans — and an illegal one.
"We were sitting on the beach on Sunday having a nice time — not being loud, not bothering anyone, not littering — minding our own business," Page said.
So they were surprised when police approached them on the beach and asked to see everyone's IDs, even those in her group who weren't drinking, she said.
Page and her friends got lucky: one of the officers said he "wasn't going to give anyone tickets, but he COULD give them to all of us if that's the way I wanted it," Page wrote in an email. That included those in her group who didn't have a beer in hand at the time.
A longtime Chicagoan and frequent beach goer, Page said enforcement of the city's open container laws on beaches are such a rarity, the thought of being ticketed for her friends' surreptitious sips hadn't crossed her mind.
Shaun Washington of Lincoln Park was enjoying North Avenue Beach on Tuesday, something he says he tries to do every day in the summer. He often brings his own booze.
Washington says drinking on the lakeshore is common, but discretion is key.
People "should be inconspicuous with their drinking," Washington said. "They deserve it if they get caught. The city needs money."
Page's Father's Day flap also comes as police grapple with a rash of recent violent crimes on city beaches: two teenagers were shot earlier this month at 31st Street Beach, and another young man was stabbed days later on North Avenue Beach. A 25-year-old woman was killed Sunday after getting shot in the head near an underpass connecting to Ohio Street Beach, and three people were wounded in a shooting near Montrose Dog Beach Wednesday night.
Police won't say if they're cranking up enforcement on beach drinking and other ordinance violations in response to the recent lakefront violence. But a spokesman said they're committed to enforcing the law.
"The members of the Chicago Police Department work tirelessly on behalf of the residents of Chicago and we will continue in that effort throughout the summer," Officer Michael Carroll, a Chicago police spokesman, said in a statement. "CPD will also continue enforcing the Municipal Code of Chicago at our beaches and throughout the city."
Drinking tickets carry fines between $100 and $500, according to the city code. CPD doesn't publicly share statistics on the number of tickets issued.
Page said she knows that drinking isn't "technically" allowed on the beach, but she's dismayed by police "randomly walking around writing tickets or IDing adults who are clearly not causing a problem." She points to beachfront bars and restaurants that serve drinks as a policing paradox.
"The only line between it being legal and illegal is the end of a patio that pays the city for a liquor license," she said.
Managers at some of those beachfront bars say they have noticed an uptick in police activity compared to last summer.
Ernesto Alvarez, who manages the bar at Ohio Street Beach, said he can tell that police are writing more tickets than usual this month, but said officers were out in force last year, too.
"They want to keep this beach clean and out of trouble," he said.