Such fines would not collect nearly as much revenue as a tax. Consider the case of fining people for possession of marijuana versus legalizing and taxing it. St

Such fines would not collect nearly as much revenue as a tax. Consider the case of fining people for possession of marijuana versus legalizing and taxing it. States that tax collect several orders of magnitude more revenue, which they use to benefit the less fortunate. Fines have another disadvantage: Unlike taxes, fines are regressive and selectively enforced. When it comes to lakes, mountains, woods, waterfalls, caves, cliffs, and other majestic natural phenomena, we're fine with some being privately-owned and some being public. We have mechanisms in place to ensure that we make the right trade-offs (eg: natural parks, nature preserves, zoning). Plenty of states and countries allow private beaches and they do just fine. I don't see why the coastline is so special that we must ban all private ownership, even if it means sacrificing valuable revenue for social programs.