Long Beach dog owners no longer have to leave their pets at home when they head to the shore. The City Council voted unanimously to approve a pilot program allowing leashed, permitted dogs onto the sand at Ocean Beach Park through April 15, ending a longstanding ban that had kept pets off the beach and boardwalk entirely.
The vote, reported by News12 Long Island, came after weeks of heated discussion among residents over whether to loosen the city's rules. Under the pilot, dogs must stay leashed at all times and be current on their rabies vaccinations. Owners also have to obtain a permit to participate, with the fee set at $25 for residents and $50 for nonresidents.
Before this change, city rules kept dogs off the beach entirely. According to Newsday, the city charter prohibits dogs from entering the beach or boardwalk at any time, and a 2026 event-use application from the City of Long Beach still lists dogs and animals as banned from the beach, boardwalk, and Kennedy Plaza under Sec. 5:22-23.
The ban was written into the city’s code decades ago: Section 5-23 bars dogs from Ocean Beach Park and the boardwalk, and the city’s code records the provision as enacted in 1990. The pilot therefore creates a temporary exception to a prohibition that has stood for more than three decades. Long Beach’s codified ordinance spells out the restriction and its enactment history.
Fines and Fallout for Rule-Breakers
Violating the new pilot's rules carries real financial risk. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $1,000, per the News12 report. That's a steep jump from what owners previously faced for simply bringing a dog onto the beach: Newsday put the old fine at $150, while Greater Long Island reported a range of $50 to $100 for violating the prior rule. The discrepancy between those two accounts was not resolved in either report.
City officials have framed the program as a trial run rather than a permanent fix. Officials said the temporary pilot allows them to evaluate its impact before making any lasting changes. One council member put it simply: “It's a pilot program, we need to get some data, we'll see if it works,” adding that the city may readjust the program if it doesn't.
Residents Split Over Cleanup and Access
Not everyone on the boardwalk is thrilled. Opponents of the change cited concerns about beach cleanliness and uncollected dog waste during the public debate. Kal Lanco, who lives near the boardwalk, said people don't pick up after themselves, and that's a problem.
Cleanup concerns have a broader public-health dimension: New York’s beach-water guidance identifies animal waste as one possible source of bacteria associated with fecal pollution, alongside sewage, failing septic systems and storm-water runoff. The state advises beachgoers to clean up after pets and says local health departments and other agencies oversee public-beach monitoring and notifications. New York’s coastal-beach guidance explains why preventing waste from reaching the water matters.
Others welcomed the shift. Jamie Gillespie, who currently brings her service animal to the shore, welcomed the expansion of beach access for other pet owners, saying it'd be nice if there were other dogs to play with. She suggested designated hours or specific areas for pets as a way to balance access with order.
Public support for the idea had been building for weeks. An online petition had drawn more than 1,600 signatures as of an Oct. 20 hearing, where supporters submitted a petition bearing more than 1,900 names, according to Newsday. By the following Tuesday, that same petition on change.org had grown to 2,024 signatories. More than a dozen people spoke on the proposal at that hearing, with most in favor, though others raised the same sanitation and enforcement concerns that opponents voiced before the council.
How Long Beach Compares to Nearby Towns
Long Beach isn't the first on Long Island to loosen its stance for the offseason. Southampton, East Hampton, and Atlantic Beach all allow some dog access during the colder months, Newsday reported. Babylon and Riverhead, by contrast, do not permit dogs on their beaches at all, with Riverhead making an exception only for working dogs.
Nearby rules show that “off-season access” can come with different boundaries. Atlantic Beach, immediately west of Long Beach, bars dogs from its boardwalk year-round and from its beaches from April through September; its rules also require leashes and enforce waste cleanup. Southampton allows dogs at town-owned beach recreation facilities from Oct. 1 through March 30, provided they remain under immediate control and owners remove waste. Atlantic Beach’s pet rules and Southampton’s animal code illustrate the range of local approaches.
For now, Long Beach's pilot is set to run through April 15, giving officials a single offseason stretch to gather data on how the leash, vaccination, and permit rules hold up before deciding whether dogs earn a permanent spot on the sand.
