By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City’s new beach tag inspector has a pleasant smile, but seems to have a lazy streak.
“Benny,” as he is called, greets pedestrians and motorists while sitting comfortably on a bench in front of the Sea Isle City Welcome Center at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Park Road.
He is already turning into a crowd favorite for selfies and Facebook plaudits, but no one has seen him out on the beach actually doing his job.
He apparently hasn’t moved one inch from his perch on the bench. But despite his questionable work habits, it seems that he does have job security – at least until Halloween.
Benny, you see, is a scarecrow whose employment as a Sea Isle beach tag inspector was concocted by the city’s Tourism Division staff as a Halloween gag. He is also serving as the city’s entry in the Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization’s second annual Halloween Scarecrow Contest around town.
Sporting a red visor with the words “Beach Tag Inspector” inscribed on it, Benny appears ready to go to work. He’s dressed in an outfit similar to what the real beach tag inspectors wear.
He also has a red bag at his side that says “Sea Isle City Beach Tags.” But instead of beach tags, the bag is filled with straw – just like Benny’s lumpy body.
As a comical touch, Benny’s head is a smiling pumpkin face. Also sure to elicit laughs are the tacky red sunglasses attached to his white jacket for those sun-splashed days out on the beach.
Chris Oney, Sea Isle’s tourism representative, came up with the idea for a scarecrow beach tag inspector named Benny.
“We were throwing around some ideas and Chris said, ‘Why not a beach tag inspector? It was easy to do, because we had everything here,’” tourism assistant Trish Jackson explained of the clothing and other things that were needed to decorate the scarecrow.
At the Jersey Shore, the word “Benny” is slang for stereotypically obnoxious tourists from New York or North Jersey. Oney said he didn’t realize the connotation of the word until after he picked Benny as the scarecrow’s name.
“I was trying to come up with a name that rhymed. Then I realized it had another meaning,” Oney said.
Last year, Sea Isle’s Halloween scarecrow was named “Shoobie,” another slang term for tourists at the Jersey Shore, Jackson said. She noted that Shoobie wasn’t one of the winning entries in the Chamber of Commerce’s Halloween Scarecrow Contest in 2022.
Benny seems to have plenty of fans this year. Comments posted on Sea Isle City’s Facebook page suggest that he’s a big hit with the public.
“So adorable. The badge people are the best,” Linda Awarski said in one post.
“How cute is this!” Debbie Gechman wrote.
“Love this,” Renee Patrone Rhinehart gushed in another Facebook post.
Cheryl Kehner, the wife of Sea Isle Councilman Bill Kehner, described one heartwarming scene involving Benny.
“Bill and I were driving back into town yesterday and saw the cutest thing – a little girl sitting on that bench and talking away to the scarecrow!! Just adorable!” she wrote on Facebook.
Amid all the compliments, another Facebook post written by Christine Donohue suggests that Benny has been performing his beach tag inspector job after all, without any down time.
“This beach tagger is always on duty. Do you think the beach tagger gets paid $$$ overtime???” Donohue wrote.
