Wills Beach Service Ocean City MD

For about $8 a day, a "beach boy" or "beach girl" will dig a colorful umbrella into your favorite spot of sand and periodically rotate it over your head as the wind shifts and the sun crosses the afternoon sky.

Some longtime Ocean City beachgoers consider their umbrella rentals a tradition as vital to the town's old-fashioned ambiance -- or what's left of it -- as frozen custard and boardwalk strolls.

But this year, some say, something is amiss among the oversize parasols. There is talk of collusion, of territorial rights, of people not playing by the rules in a fiercely competitive world. After all, umbrella rentals are big business in a beach town. And some in Ocean City say things have gotten a bit intense.

As Robbie Snyder, 38, a beach-stand operator for 10 years, put it: "It gets pretty cutthroat."

The controversy started during the winter, while the tourists were away. Every February, the town auctions off much of its 10 miles of beach, block by block, and about 20 beach-stand operators carve out their selling territories. The highest sealed bid wins the sole right to rent umbrellas, beach chairs and boogie boards on that block.

Some blocks of beach, such as those that abut the crowded boardwalk or sit in a hotel's front yard, can fetch up to $20,000. Others, in front of construction sites or houses where people tend to own their own beach equipment, go for as little as $300. Either way, beach-stand operators who employ the beach boys and beach girls pay the money to the town as an annual "franchise fee."

Last year, those fees added up to $764,000 for town coffers. The total dropped to $690,000 when 29th Street to 84th Street went on the auction block in February. One block that pulled in $652 three years ago went for a bargain $51.

Some City Council members suggested publicly that operators, who have complained about the franchise fees for years, might have gotten together, discussed their sealed offers and purposely low-balled the town.

"The city solicitor found them to be questionable in some respects," said Martha Bennett, the town's finance administrator. "It just looked odd."

Beach-stand operators say their low offers show only that they are struggling to survive, not rigging bids. Three of the last six summers brought a slew of soggy weekends, like the one this Memorial Day, that kept beachgoers away. To make matters worse, some operators say, they have become out-priced by an influx of highway and boardwalk surf superstores that sell smaller, throwaway aluminum beach umbrellas for $10.

"When times were good, the city loved us. But when bids are down, they accuse us of collusion," said Paul Stock, a stand operator for 32 years, who rents 25 blocks. "I lost at least $50,000 last year. Would you pay real high money to lose money?"

Patti Murrell, owner of Patti's Beach Service for 21 years, said she lost money the last three summers on at least six of her 38 beach stands, which cost $15,000 to $20,000 each to stock with umbrellas and chairs.

"We regular bidders had no choice but to go down," Murrell said.

Besides, they say, even though the 20 or so operators have known one another for years, they are too competitive to cooperate on bids.

Every Monday morning, at least one shows up in the city clerk's office to complain that a competitor is sticking umbrellas outside his territory.

Then there is the perpetual problem to the south. As right-handed people approach the beach, they always seem to turn to their right to search out their sitting spots. Customers inadvertently spark turf battles by entering the beach on one block and wanting to stretch out and relax on the next.

Snyder said he considered bringing his camera and snapping photos of the beach boys to his south luring away customers or planting umbrellas on his side of the boundary line. Instead, he said, he gave the next-door competition an ultimatum: Stay off my turf, or "I'll sit a girl in a hot bikini up here right near the steps and see how many people I get over here."

Beach-stand operators say they can, and will have to, bid higher next year if the summer weather improves over this weekend's Memorial Day rain and wind, which shut down umbrella rentals altogether. Town officials, meanwhile, are discussing whether the time has come to change the bidding process.

Whatever happens, both sides agree that the tradition will survive in Ocean City as long as some beachgoers refuse to have their umbrellas any other way.

They are counting on people such as Brook Yearley, 38, of Baltimore, whose family has rented umbrellas every summer from Stock since she was a child.

"I remember 10 years ago, Paul lost 14th Street" to a higher bidder, Yearley said. "That was a big deal. Then he got 12th Street, and my parents moved down here. They were loyal to Paul."

Yearley and several friends who grew up together during summers in Ocean City still meet around Stock's 12th Street umbrellas most summer weekends. Now, they bring their own children. Every morning when they get to the beach, one of Stock's beach boys or beach girls already has their umbrella in place on the "front line," closest to the ocean. CAPTION: Michael Fogley, of Scranton, Pa., scans the sands for potential customers. He works for Patti's Beach Service, which caters to Ocean City beachgoers who prefer to travel light and rent equipment such as umbrellas. CAPTION: Brook Yearley, 38, of Baltimore, has been renting umbrellas at Ocean City from Paul Stock since she was a child, even when Stock had to change locations. With her are husband Chuck and 2-year-old son Dorsey, at left in the background with Rich Farrell, 3, son of Bob and Trish Farrell, of Baltimore.