Confronted at a park.

[Jeremy S]

The last 2 parks they built in town where i live have signs that say metal detecting allowed but no digging.I wonder how long it will be before they put up signs like that in all the parks.Then i will have to go to the beach or county fairgrounds.And they have put fences around all the schools.

At least they allow detecting. Almost all city parks and all state parks in my area have ordinances banning detecting. The state parks allow it on beach areas ONLY with permission from the property manager, which they won't grant.

Even the local fairgrounds that dates to the 1800s banned detecting. That was all due to this one old woman causing trouble with them.

 

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[justdon]

Believe me jeremy s in my area we are not that far from having laws just like where you are.Every year some new law comes out pertaining to detecting.Its like they are slowly taking all the areas away from us.

 

[: Michael-Robert.]

No, this means you can dig and just refill. you will not disturb natural beauty or be harming anything. Consider it probing with immediate refill

This is the ordinance in my town. Sec. 26.02.030. Park prohibitions: A 5- Damage, cut, carve, mark, transplant or remove any plant, or injure the bark, dig in or otherwise disturb grass areas, or in any other way injure the natural beauty or usefulness of any area.
Kinda cut and dried in the old law for me.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

No, this means you can dig and just refill. you will not disturb natural beauty or be harming anything. Consider it probing with immediate refill

haha embrym, I was thinking along the same lines. That if this type verbage automatically precludes detecting and retrieving, then you might as well stick to private property folks. Because gauranteed, such verbage exists in every single speck of public owned land everywhere. Yet reality dictates that: As long as you're not leaving holes/marks, then .... well .... you've fulfilled the intent of said rules.

You've done a good job of pointing out that in THAT particular case, they even give contextual meaning and definition to the "dig" word. It does, in fact, seem to indicate end result.

Now as to whether someone will still take objection to this interpretation, sure, anything's possible. Fine then, do as Jeremy says in his post #19, and go at lower traffic times. Kinda like nose-picking: not necessarily illegal, but .... for pete's sake, don't we *all* sort of use a little discretion of our timing, so as not to offend certain folks ?

 

[fella]

Get a yellow vest and a hard hat and carry a few marking flags!

 

[Sandman]

All the newbies think any sound they hear they will have to uncover it, so out comes the trowel or Lesche. What the heck they think, I bought a detector so I gotta get that coin outta the ground. Using a probe is a lost art. If I can't touch the coin with the probe it stays under the grass. In our county parks you will get a huge ticket if even seen with a shovel no matter how small it is.

 

[G.I.B.]

It looks like you are in Montana-

Don't you have like a zillion acres outside the city parks you can detect?

Old pioneer camps, trails, ghost towns?

 

[mikeraydj]

As your signature says: "TIME IS THE ONLY THING YOU NEVER GET BACK." I got into this hobby because I want to experience it all. That includes making some deeper digs, detecting old sites, trying different detectors, and even detecting old mine sites for nuggets. I will obey the laws. I need to do some research and expand my opportunities to find some good targets, and maybe someday a banner. Because it is fun and good for me. It won't hurt me to get more experience using a probe. It is another opportunity to learn.

 

[piper247]

Just keep this in mind. Not knowing the law can end up with you losing your metal detector and you sitting in jail.
Better to know what you can & can't do.

 

[mikeraydj]

Gib, In Montana the State parks are off limits like the City parks. Unless you detect below the high watermark of a lake, river, or stream.
You cannot detect at all in places that have been designated historical.
On county land and parks, there is no law against detecting and digging.
I believe Federal lands don't allow digging and you can be arrested for even bring a detector into a National park like Yellowstone.
Ghost towns in my area are quickly being made off limits by historical societies who buy the land or have laws passed banning detecting. They also can apply to have these sites designated national historic sites so detecting is prohibited. Open sites for ghost towns are harder and harder to find.
BLM land is ok.
The rest of the state is being bought up and posted. Permission from land owners is hard to get if you can even find out who the owner is.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Just keep this in mind. Not knowing the law can end up with you losing your metal detector and you sitting in jail.
Better to know what you can & can't do.

Then what do you do with an honestly vague wording (like "alter" and "deface" which can be interpretted, logically, to mean the end result) ? Or what to do in a case like this use of the word "dig", where mike-ray-DJ correctly points out, that even its self-admitted context is that it "injures the natural beauty". Thus, again, inferring the end result ?

To me I do not see those as "laws" that say or mean "no detecting" (and, gasp, even retrieving).

So we'd all probably pretty much agree with you to "obey the laws" (this is a family forum afterall, haha). But when it comes to grey areas like this, ......... someone is more than welcome to come alert me if they have an issue. And ... no, I can't think of anyone anywhere that ever "went to jail" for detecting an innocuous park, where no rule specifically said "no detecting". If you have any examples of "jail" for such a thing, then we're all ears.

 

[Msbeepbeep]

Mikeraydj- Like TH- I probe and pop the coin out with a screwdriver, and am aeriating the soil, which is in fact GOOD FOR IT!
It does not: damage, cut, carve, mark, transplant, remove any plant, injure bark, dig (no soil removed), or disturb grass.
I also detect early Sunday mornings.

H-2CHARLIE- if you stick the screwdriver into the soil an inch from your 1" hole and press towards the hole it squeezes the 1" hole a little smaller, not that anyone would complain, but there's no evidence left at all. I always press everything back together, and ruffle the grass.

If questioned I can look back and ask "I've been digging where?" "This was surface finds, just making sure it's a coin and not dried dog doo."

 

[nomad 11]

This is the ordinance in my town. Sec. 26.02.030. Park prohibitions: A 5- Damage, cut, carve, mark, transplant or remove any plant, or injure the bark, dig in or otherwise disturb grass areas, or in any other way injure the natural beauty or usefulness of any area.
Kinda cut and dried in the old law for me.

see where that clause says"otherwise disturb grass areas"all you need to do is be seen by the wrong person of authority at the time.and then the show is over.even if you're probing a 4 or 5 deep target if you make a 1 inch wide hole and the wrong person walks up and see's it "you are otta there" all it takes is a few fools to ruin it.kids especially are careless.leaving dirt around the top of the manicured grass after digging a hole attracts attention.i try to be as meticulous as possible.most of the time you cant even tell where i dug.unless its an area where the grass is really worn down i stomp the dirt down the best i can but then when it rains it basically erases it.if i see someone making a mess i tell them hey dont ruin it for me.i show them the right way and inform them that the law is coming down hard on the hobby.i've been run out of all the county parks where i live.one of these days i'm going to follow up on it though and see actually why and read the ordinance..and all i use is a garden knife.shovels of any kind will get you kicked out of parks!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... if you make a 1 inch wide hole and the wrong person walks up and see's it "you are otta there"........

you hit the nail on the head. It's not neccesarily what interpretations we can all try to use (semantics of words). But .... rather .... who you run into ! Because anyone can complain about anything, at any time, if they're in a bad mood. Heck, I even had a lady say my detector bothered her dog once! (I think she though it emitted some sort of frequency ?). So my solution therefore is that if I'm going to hunt turf (which has admitted connotations), then the less of such potential persons to run into, the better. So there are parks that I will only hunt after ...say .... 6pm, etc.... So peaceful. So serene

 

[mikeraydj]

I usually hit the parks in the early morning. It just so happened this morning the Parks and Rec. people were there to hold a staff picnic and were setting up for it. Rotten luck that. Before that, I had seen parks personnel and they never said a word to me. I am sure she put the word out now.

 

[Jeremy S]

I usually hit the parks in the early morning. It just so happened this morning the Parks and Rec. people were there to hold a staff picnic and were setting up for it. Rotten luck that. Before that, I had seen parks personnel and they never said a word to me. I am sure she put the word out now.

The park employees I usually run into are the guys cleaning up or mowing. Most of them could care less that I am there. Often they ask me if I am finding anything and seem friendly. I still try to stay "out of sight and out of mind".

I don't go when they are having events or if it is a high traffic time. That is just asking to run into a busy body, a flock of curious kids who never leave, or a bored guy who wants to stand in front of you and talk for hours.

 

[piper247]

Then what do you do with an honestly vague wording (like "alter" and "deface" which can be interpretted, logically, to mean the end result) ? Or what to do in a case like this use of the word "dig", where mike-ray-DJ correctly points out, that even its self-admitted context is that it "injures the natural beauty". Thus, again, inferring the end result ?

To me I do not see those as "laws" that say or mean "no detecting" (and, gasp, even retrieving).

So we'd all probably pretty much agree with you to "obey the laws" (this is a family forum afterall, haha). But when it comes to grey areas like this, ......... someone is more than welcome to come alert me if they have an issue. And ... no, I can't think of anyone anywhere that ever "went to jail" for detecting an innocuous park, where no rule specifically said "no detecting". If you have any examples of "jail" for such a thing, then we're all ears.

Oh I do indeed, Tom.
Here's one example, if you want more let me know. Metal Detecting In Florida And The Law

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Oh I do indeed, Tom.
Here's one example, if you want more let me know. Metal Detecting In Florida And The Law

piper247, do you realize you just gave me a state park example ? Do you have any examples from city or county level park? Which I presumed was the point in this post.

Now I'm the first to agree that that story (which has circulated widely by-the-way, as the sole story that most people can point to with google results), is sad, scary, etc.... But it was a state park. So you or I could argue he "could have known". However, it was a parking lot, and the wording they relied on was cultural heritage. Hardly "specific" in that it didn't say specifically no metal detecting (as far as I know, maybe it was that specific).

But let's cut to the chase here piper: SO TOO can I probably find you extreme horror story links of a motorist who was pulled over. Roughed up, arrested, ticketed, and jailed, by an over-zealous cop .... ALL FOR A TAIL LIGHT OUT. What would you say if I came up with such a link? You would no doubt say that the cop was over-reacting. And that the story is a fluke and not normal, right? And that you would not be afraid to drive the next day, right? Because, stories like that are simply the exception, not the norm.

 

[piper247]

piper247, do you realize you just gave me a state park example ? Do you have any examples from city or county level park? Which I presumed was the point in this post.

Now I'm the first to agree that that story (which has circulated widely by-the-way, as the sole story that most people can point to with google results), is sad, scary, etc.... But it was a state park. So you or I could argue he "could have known". However, it was a parking lot, and the wording they relied on was cultural heritage. Hardly "specific" in that it didn't say specifically no metal detecting (as far as I know, maybe it was that specific).

But let's cut to the chase here piper: SO TOO can I probably find you extreme horror story links of a motorist who was pulled over. Roughed up, arrested, ticketed, and jailed, by an over-zealous cop .... ALL FOR A TAIL LIGHT OUT. What would you say if I came up with such a link? You would no doubt say that the cop was over-reacting. And that the story is a fluke and not normal, right? And that you would not be afraid to drive the next day, right? Because, stories like that are simply the exception, not the norm.

I'll grant you that Tom, I'm not trying to make a big deal out of this, my only point is to be careful, you never know, that's all.

 

[kyleeskastles]

My solution for this being bothered problem has been to go late night well after everyone is gone.