Street side of sidewalk??

[Idaho PRB]

I think the bottom line here is to always be courteous and respectful. Carry yourself this way and it will open up far more doors than pushing your "rights" on anyone. One of the most lucrative sales tecniques is "word of mouth" or "repeat customers". This is achieved by establishing trust and respect.
Homeowners that you have established this relationship with become "references" and can refer you to other possible sites to hunt. If nothing else, if you leave a good impression, they may defend your activity to their neighbors and build a general "Good Impression" of you and your activitys.

 

[wvrick]

It is considered city property where I'm at, but most of the time the police get called so much from people that think its theirs the police ask you to move. Or the owner comes out and is always mad if your there, I only hunted this way a time or two on vacant with little luck and even ask if I could hunt before hand at the occupied houses and always was told no so I gave up but thats been 30yrs ago.

 

[Darrell]

My intent was to stir the pot a bit. It looks like it worked. I don't know any of the people that responded to my post, but I will assume they are the best hole diggers in the world and nicest folks in the world.. I never called anyone out by name. Nothing personel. There are a lot of folks that read but don't post. My fear is that someone will read these posts and believe they can hunt the grassy strips and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop them. That attitude will get detecting banned in that city in a heartbeat.

All cities have laws about destroying public property. It doesn't matter how you interpret the law. It's how the police and the judge interpret the law. About 10 years ago Findmall had a hunt in Hartford. A few of us got in early enough on Fri to do some detecting. What I remember about the park that I hunted that day is the crime scene tape and the outline of where a body had been. Everything was fine the 1st day. The next day we were told that we could not detect in Hartford because digging a hole would be considered destroying public property. We were told the police were on the lookout for us and we would be arrested on sight. Luckily everything was straightened out the next day. It's ok to detect the sand in my local county parks. If you detect in the grass, you are not allowed to dig a plug because you are destroying public property. Detecting was banned in a nearby city because the plugs were turning brown, Destroying public property. The local club got the ban lifted by agreeing not to detect when it was hot and dry. I'm not saying that every city interprets it's illegal to destroy public property law to ban metal detecting. But it has happened and continues to happen.

The guys that were shot at were 2 brothers that detected in my area in the 60's and 70's. After they decided the parks were hunted out they started hunting the grassy strips. That expanded their searches to include the front yards. They weren't shot at until they were hunting an area around some abandoned buildings.The shots came from the abandoned buildings. They didn't stop to figure out where the shots were coming from. It was the day they quit detecting. I know of 2 instances where a gun had to be drawn/shown to stop the guy that was detecting from being mugged. I know of 2 instances where the person detecting was robbed. In the park that I hunt the most, I found human remains. A lagoon had been lowered and there was a skull sitting in a few inches of water. I grabbed a stick to turn it around to make sure it was human. I called the police. A few weeks later a met the cop at the park so he could finish up the paper work. The cop said the remains were male, about 35 years old and had been shot 5 times. I believe that I avoided 2 beat downs but that's another story for another post.

I hope we can all be friends, or at least agree to disagree..

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Yes, I agree, it's not how we interpret the laws. "Image" will always win out over "reality". Agreed. So that even though you and I know we won't leave a trace, the minute someone ELSE sees you with so much as a screwdriver to probe, with, they *might* level the accusation, and presto: THAT will win out, not your end result. We agree on that.

I'm just having trouble then, taking this to its logical conclusion, which is: And since this is the case, therefore we must or should make the resulting equivalence: "metal detecting equals destruction". And since we can all agree that it is illegal to "destroy" public property, then by mere definition, you can NEVER detect anywhere, except private property with permission. Because gauranteed: you will never get permission to destroy and destruct public property, if that is what your definition of detecting is. Thus, you might as well give up, and choose another hobby (or cease going to all public locations anyhow).

So my solution, is to steer clear of people who would make this false knee-jerk judgements, upon seeing me in the midst of recovery. That is, why go when they're around, to even allow this false assumption, to begin with? Set your alarm to 5am on Saturdays, and hit the parks then for pete's sake. Leave by 9am, and who's there to gripe? Or if you see the lawn-mower guy there that day, for pete's sake pick another park. I think too many md'rs go waltzing into the parks or schools when lots of people are around, and then end up wondering why someone griped? Heck, it's gotten to where I even hunt parks and schools at night a lot now. NOT because I think I'm doing anything wrong, but simply to avoid gripers. If you stick out like a sore thumb, it's to be expected you get lookie-lous who wonder what you're doing.