City Park question

Tom_in_CA · Apr 22, 2014

Jamflicker said:
Rules will be interpreted differently by different people. This example happened to me this weekend. I was detecting in the morning and a park ranger came up and asked if I was finding anything. I showed him a V nickel I had just found and he said "Very cool, just make sure you fill your holes so no one falls." Towards the end of the day another park ranger walks up to me and says that I am not allowed to metal detect and digging is not allowed so I left. This is an example of two different extremes of the interpretation of park rules from the same park system. I was polite to the second ranger and he could not see all the plugs I had dug. Now if he approached me and saw open holes everywhere he probably would have cited me. In the 3.5 years I have been detecting I have only ran into someone that said I couldn't detect a couple times. If there are no signs specifically saying no detecting then go for it and just cut clean plugs and try to leave no trace.

Jam-flicker, very revealing and "telling" incident, eh? Just goes to show the whimsical psychology involved. One worker cares less and wishes you luck, while the next one says "you can't do that", haha. And the same thing has been known to happen for persons going into city halls: you can get two different answers, from 2 different people. Or fetch a different answer JUST because of subtle nuances of how you phrase the question.

Thus if you ask me, I will distance myself as far as possible from such ambiguous feeling/mood/perception related outcomes. And simply do as you say: Just go for it, if there is no SPECIFIC prohibition or sign. And yes, leave no trace, avoid lookie-lous who might not like it, etc... Kinda like nose picking: not necessarily illegal, but you choose discreet times to do it.

Dillinger-63 · Apr 22, 2014

I asked or local City Manager about detecting in the city park and here is his reply,

Dear Sir,

In a word the answer is ‘YES’, but you are responsible for ‘repair/replacement’ of ANY damage to turf.

I planned on taking a copy of his email reply with me in case I'm stopped, but I'm not sure if his response is the best as I will be damaging the turf so to speak.

City Park question

Tom_in_CA

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Dillinger-63

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