A Shorewood judge ruled Wednesday that a man who deliberately tested the boundaries of public access along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in late July trespassed on private property.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Paul Florsheim grew up just a few houses away from where a Shorewood resident who lives in a prominent lakeside home recorded him walking on the beach adjacent to his house multiple times and called police. Florsheim was eventually fined $313 for trespassing after walking past signs marking private property north of the public beach and cordially ignoring warnings from the police.
He previously told Wisconsin Watch that, despite Wisconsin law, the stretch of beach along Lake Michigan just north of Milwaukee had long been treated by locals like a public right of way.
Municipal Court Judge Margo Kirchner found Florsheim guilty and ordered him to pay a $313 trespassing fine, citing Wisconsin precedent that limits public access along privately controlled Lake Michigan shorelines.
Unlike other states bordering Lake Michigan like Michigan and Indiana, Wisconsin law does not guarantee public access to the beach up to the point where sand typically meets vegetation.
Under a 1923 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, private property owners adjacent to the shoreline are granted “exclusive” use of the beach, even though the land is publicly owned. The court held that Wisconsinites may walk along the shoreline only if they remain in the water.
Florsheim previously told Wisconsin Watch he hopes to appeal the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where a favorable ruling could reshape public access along Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan shoreline.
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