Mixed reactions from Chennaiites for lockdown of beach on Sundays

Last Sunday, the Marina Beach saw a sea of people. It was the first Sunday after it reopened after being out of bounds to the public for nearly four months, following the COVID-19 second wave. Soon, pics of people crowding and throwing caution in the wind, did the rounds on social media. And it didn’t take long for the government to come up with a decision to not allow people on beaches on Sundays.Ask Chennaiites about this restriction on Sundays and their responses vary from ‘absolutely right move’ to ‘could have handled it differently’ and ‘expecting to lift the Sunday restriction post Vinayaka Chaturthi’.
‘Thumbs up to the Sunday restriction’
It’s absolutely right on the part of the government to close it down on Sundays after what we saw last Sunday, says actress Kasthuri Shankar. After seeing pics from Marina on the first day it opened, Kasturi had even tweeted her disappointment, saying people couldn’t care less about the pandemic. She had tweeted, “Beach is the place to start the third WAVE. #sigh #vimochaname_Illai #Marina #Chennai #COVID19 (sic).”
Talking about the restriction on Sunday, she says, “We have given up on so many things because of the pandemic, so, why not beaches? Beaches, in general, are tourist magnets. Tamil Nadu has a long coastline and there are so many beaches that are accessible to the public, especially locals. But people aren’t thronging all of them. Marina Beach is a highly commercialised tourist magnet and people come in buses to see it. Chennaiites don’t necessarily go and throng this beach.”
Kasthuri adds, “Chennaiites wouldn’t have thronged the Marina beach last Sunday. I believe a lot of them would have been from outside Chennai, taking the opportunity to visit the beach. They would be like, ‘Oh, we are in Chennai and the beach is open. Let’s go, let’s go!’ If you are a local, you could go to the beach any day. But if you’re a tourist, you would come during the weekend. I feel it’s a completely sensible idea to close the beach on Sundays. In fact, the beach was closed every day for the longest time and I thought that was sensible as well. Because, crowd control is impossible as it is an open area.”
Arathi Sivan, a regular runner, who’s part of a running group that trains close to the beach, agrees and says, “The beach is generally crowded on weekends. So, we’ve stopped training on the sand. Of late, we do the warm-ups at the promenade and take off for running. They had opened up the beach and it was a disaster last Sunday. So, what else can be done than keeping it closed when a large crowd is expected to come?”
‘No point in ban on select days’
Actor and comedian Bosskey, a resident of Mylapore, has been a regular at Marina Beach for the last 15 years. He says, “I was glad when the government announced that the beach would be open to the public. But seeing pics of the frenzied gathering, I feared another wave of corona.” However, he also feels there is no point in a ban on entry on select days. “In a place like the beach, it is very difficult to impose rules, because it’s basically a freak out spot! You can’t convert the Marina into a meditation hall!” he quips.
“If not Sunday, people might choose to go another day, say Saturday or Friday evening. Crowding is possible on those days, too. The government should either ban entry to the beach on all days or ensure restricted entry and keep it open on all days. Reports say open spaces are safer than crowded, closed spaces. So, why deny entry only on select days?” asks R Sudharshan, a young beach-goer.
‘Hoping Sunday ban will be lifted after Vinayagar Chaturthi weekend’
For hundreds of vendors on Marina and Besant Nagar, weekends are when they make some quick bucks. For about four months, many of them had no work. So, when beaches reopened two weeks ago, they were hoping things would get better, but the beach visit ban on Sunday has come as a disappointment for them. “The beach comes to life after 3pm, especially on weekends. We had decent business last weekend. Yes, there was an unusual crowd last week. But that’s not how it is every weekend. Maybe a lot of people came that day as it was the first Sunday after beaches reopened. Unless it is a weekend, business is very dull. Many of us didn’t have any work for about four months. We are hoping that beaches would be allowed to open after the long weekend around Vinayagar Chaturthi,” says Revathi, a bajji seller at Marina beach while packing things up on Friday close to the 10pm curfew time.