Permission to land sail in a parking lot?

[DelCarpenter]

Do you ask for permission? If you ask, please describe which places said yes.

I’ve never asked for permission. At first that was because I figured if anyone asked me to leave I would just go quietly.

Now I have the idea that most places have not developed a policy because they haven’t faced the issue. Most front-line people who first receive the question don’t have enough authority to say yes, so their natural inclination is to say no, a safe answer for them and one that looks like they have more authority than they do.

My current thought goes something like this: the church lots I sail on are part of large organizations who have a fluid membership so whoever sees me doesn’t know if I attend or not, so they are inclined to think I am one of them and therefore what I’m doing is acceptable. Plus I do wear a helmet & pads so I look like I’m trying to be safe (and I really am).

At the public junior high school where I sail 3-4 times a year in the last 5 years no one has ever stopped to talk to me. I do aim to be there when almost no one else is there so maybe I’m just lucky. Or maybe a rise in skateboarding in the last 10 years which affected UNI’s response has also reached (or literally came from) junior high schools.

Sometimes I sail in the parking lot for a call center with maybe 100 to 300 employees. My guess is, if a janitor or someone working late sees me they think I am one of the employees, Another place I sometimes sail is on a strip mall in the area where overnight trucks sometimes park between a farm/fleet type store and a Wal-Mart. At those or any other places I avoid them when more than just a few people are around when I am sailing.

About 12 years ago the campus police at University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls IA told me skateboarding wasn't allowed on campus so I had to stop. A few years later I just happened to visit on the day the student newspaper said skateboarding was now allowed if used for transportation. Then I started sailing their large parking lots again & haven't been bothered since.

[dllee]

Threat of lawsuit when you twist your ankle is the leering sceptre.
Maybe it's loosening lately.

[U2U2U2]

[isobars]

I've landsailed, WSed, dirt-biked, hiked, camped overnight, and snowmobiled on whatever piece of land or water attracted my attention for decades. I use SOME common sense west of the East Texas dry line, where most land is publicly owned ... i.e., it's MINE, all MINE. ONCE a rancher questioned my presence and explained that I was camping on private land instead of the nearby National Park land, and a couple of times a cop asked for my ID. The VAST majority of the time, I've freely used such venues as corporate and campus lawns and newly bulldozed housing development dirt for landsailing, ANYWHERE (incl ski slopes, golf courses, scores of miles of pastures/fields/forests, etc.) for snowmobiing because ya can't hurt the snow, everything from a big hotel pond to any lake shore accessible to my 4X4 for WSing, and any forest/canyon/desert land, including almost all of Utah, for dirt biking, with nary a complaint. I avoided homes, yards, crowds, posted land, etc where someone might have a legitimate concern beyond seeing someone having that much fun.

Landowners in most states, if not all by now, are specifically exempt from liability as long as they haven't erected an actual trap designed to hurt trespassers.

[U2U2U2]

Trespassing laws vary from state to state.
In Colorado, you are trespassing, if you don’t have permission or consent.
The land does not have to be posted.
Criminal trespass , is more serious.
1. Don’t spit into the wind
2. Don’t tug on Superman’s cape.
3. Don’t get in a pi88ing match with a skunk.
4. Consider the advise whence it come from .

[isobars]

How many companies, private landowners, or cops are going to bother filing a trespass charge when a simple "Scram" request achieves the same thing?

A guy mowing the lawn at a government office building told me I can't rig on or launch from their lawn. I thanked him for giving me a heads-up, then walked into the top floor of the building and asked the director of the entire facility what he thought of it. "Oh, man ... I love watching you guys sail out there. Have fun and feel free to use our property."

Another time on the same lawn, a guy in a tux walked up and started a lively conversation about surfing and windsurfing. He was hosting his daughter's wedding in the facility's ballroom. He asked me to come inside and join their feast.

I was rigging on a nearby lawn, while my dogs ran loose enjoying the water and the expansive grass beside a new inn just starting construction beside the water. The developer began chatting with me, and encouraged me to keep WSing, as "my restaurant customers will love watching you sail as they dine".

I've asked several Columbia riverfront homeowners if I can launch from their lawns or private boat launches. "Of course, as long as you don't abuse it." When I borrow anything, I return it in better shape than I got it. There's always some litter to retrieve or a bug to fix.

Drove 180 miles to catch some BIG winds in NM. State Park was closed for the season behind a big locked gate. Drove to the park HQ, asked permission, got the key, and was very pleasantly told to lock it up and leave the key in the lock when I left.

The MANY hundreds of times and places I've slept overnight in wild spots throughout the intemountain west have been uninterrupted. People and cops -- on the rare occasions they see me at all -- seem to be able to tell the difference between vandals and people just trying to get a good night's sleep under the stars. I used some fantastic wild camp spots for many years in the Gorge, with full elevated views of miles of river. I lay in my van's bed close to a nighttime Shuttle launch at the Cape, with the agreement with the nearby homeowner that I'd leave after the launch.

On clearly private land, I just ask. Out west, I stay generally aware of public land areas (> a million square miles nationwide) and use Nike's approach: "Just Do It." No problems beyond a couple of inquisitive cops needing reassurance in 50 years now, with not even that with anything short of overnight camping.

Or, one can live their lives waiting for someone to tell them it's OK to sleep in this commercial concrete building, launch from a paved ramp, sleep under a million stars with all the doors and windows open, snowmobile or cross-country ski on any remote patch or hundreds of sq miles of snow, enter a traffic circle when no one is coming, fly across southern Utah sand and slickrock on a dirt bike, or eat their own damned sammich in their own damned RV.

It was all my buds' broken bones and crippling sprains, not landowner objections, that ended my landsaiing.

It's a free country, at least until a certain political factor takes over and EVERYONE has to get written permission to do ANYTHING. And in case it's not obvious, this lifetime of freedom has meant as much to me as WSing itself. It's a big part of what makes this country so great.

[U2U2U2]

On clearly private land I just ask.

http://www.iwindsurf.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33348&highlight=railroad&sid=5a661b127e2752d52fbb35d34ba8236b

[isobars]

Covered in the thread, as you know but conveniently omitted. The fact that the Congress gave both entire shorelines to the RR, permanently and completely, without oversight, to the exclusion of the public and the Corps of Engineering, is an excellent example of the loss of freedom I'm talking about. There should be at least some compromise available, particularly on private land such as the island the city of Arlington built, to construct the decent, safe, user-friendly launch ramp the city and the public want.

[U2U2U2]

When you state you ask permission to enter private land,
And it’s obvious you don’t from the thread on railroad property you aren’t creditable in neither your actions nor words.
Who gave the land , the Native American Indians owned at one time is not relative.

[isobars]

Read the f-ing RR thread.