My letter to the port authority

[ICDEDPPL]

8/1/11

Hello,
My name is Daniel Baloun. I would like to report an incident/file a complaint about an incident that transpired this past weekend at the Portage public launch.
I have been a regular user of the launch without any issue and find the employees and facility to be a pleasure and well run.This year we have been there close to every weekend.

This weekend was the exception however. This incident had nothing to do with the emloyees but rather with certain slip holders. I had my 2 childern, Austin 4 and Kylie 7, my wife Erica, our friend Bridgett and a friends 6 year old daughter Madison with us.

At the end of a beatiful day we headed to drop our guests off. The launch area was completely full with no room to tie off, since I had a transient slip at Marina Shores all I needed to do was drop off Bridgett, Madison who were leaving, and my wife to drive the truck over to Marina shores.With no available spots and childern who needed to use the bahroom , I decided to turn into the Marina to find a drop off spot. I found an empty spotat the 'T' dock facing the gas dock at the end of the Marina. Not in a slip, not in anyones way and planning to be there less than 5 minutes.
We were there for 3 minutes when a few intoxicated slip owners on that dock were pulling in. We were immediately confronted by a small group of people telling us this was their dock and we don`t belong there. I explained I was just letting people off and we are not staying. One of the gentelman named "Mick" proceeded to physically block the path and get in the face of Bridgett and Madison (6 years old) (Bridgett later told me she was afraid he was ging to push her into the water.)I got off my boat at this point, words were exchanged as I did not undersatnd such hostility from fellow boaters. At this point the rest of mostly intoxicated folks, even from other docks started to converge on us. My 2 kids now unattended in the boat had tears in their eyes as now a large mob continued to harass and yell at us.
I made the decision to leave as the mob mentality set in for the slip holders and it was obvious there was not a normal, reasonable person in the group who could explain what I had done that was so terrible.

I had to leave 2 women and a child at the dock, they were followed and harrased by close to 7 people to the parking lot, Bridgett was told this is their lot and she could not park there even thou the sign CLEARLY states PUBLIC parking. They also told her she cannot use the bathroom.
At this time the mob decided that they would get us in more trouble. Obviously the infraction of dropping off my passengers was not a matter for the police so they had decided to report that I had wielded a knife.
Now I had police looking for me at Marina Shores, kids scared, wife still being harassed till the police arrived.
The police saw I was 100% sober and realized the slip holders were completely in the wrong, they had made some negative comments toward 'that' crowd. something to the affect of white trash
Bridgett tried to have 'Mick" arrested for assault but all of a sudden he was nowhere to be found.
It was something we had never experienced and it had ruined the rest of our weekend.

At the end of the Sunday when we pulled our boat out the slip holders had sent one of the wives to our car, for what reason I`m not sure but I`m now afraid they will vandalize our vehicle if we launch there again.

In conclusion, my kids were now afraid of going back, Bridgett who is a regular guest does not want to leave her car in the PUBLIC launch, as we are both afraid of vandalism.
Were were told to "go back to Marina Shores you don`t belong here" "we own this dock", get the F- out of here" etc etc.
It is a few days later and I still cannot believe the trailer park behavior of the slip holders.In my 15 years of boating I have never experienced such mentality as a matter of fact I was always proud how boaters treated each other.
Not sure what can be done but I was told to report this to the Port Authority.

Sincerely,
Daniel Baloun


A question arises from this, what if someone starts to vandalize, board, unties or otherwise messing with your boat, how far can a person go to defend their property? lets say someone is cutting the ropes when docked I`d like to get out and beat their ass but would I be arrested?