Newport Daily News — Middletown shoreline access confrontation turns into viral video – and it raises questions

A sign marks a shoreline public access point in Rhode Island. Will Richmond/Newport Daily News

July 26, 2023

By Savana Dunning — Newport Daily News — A viral video confrontation between a Middletown property owner and a Newport resident trying to access a public right of way has generated over 6 million views on TikTok, sparking social media interest and conversation about public access to the shoreline.

“I think the real issue is that I wouldn’t have ended up on that property if the public access point wasn’t blocked,” Newport resident Cheyne Cousens said. “My intention is not to go around onto peoples’ private property. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

In the video, Cousens argues with property owner Randy Rauchle, who owns both the house behind the street, Esplanade, and a portion of the lawn abutting the shoreline, over Cousens’ legal right to be in that area. Rauchle tells Cousens multiple times to leave his property. Cousens says he was unintentionally trespassing on Rauchle’s property to try to find the public right of way to the beach below Rauchle’s lawn to go swimming.

A sign marks a shoreline public access point in Rhode Island.

The misunderstanding between the two stems from a sign near Rauchle’s property designating the space as a public access point. As it turns out, Rauchle's lawn abuts an 18-foot-wide strip down to the water, a Coastal Resources Management Council-designated shoreline access right of way dubbed “Y-05.” The sign for the public access point is hitched to the stop sign at the corner of Esplanade and Shore Drive, but nothing else delineates the space between Raucle’s lawn and the public right of way. Cousens said he walked down the right of way alongside a neighbor's hedges until he reached bushes and a cliff blocking his access. He then walked over to Raucle’s stairwell on his private lawn to see if that was the way down. That was when Raucle confronted him.

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