Been reading many forums and am impressed with the genuine consideration for others safety as well as a genuine concern/protection of access rights for kitesurfers to beaches. Apart from being chased out of the flags by lifesavers (who come set up after you've been surfing the only working bank for an hour) or the odd boardrider club who want the best spot for themselves - who enforces where and when kite surfers can go ? the "no boardrider" signs are always next to the flags but i cant say i've seen a "no-kitesurfing"sign anywhere! are they covered by some implied maritime rules ? do these rules cover SUP's as well ? There are plenty of long stretches of beaches up the east coast of OZ - is the simple rule don't go near flags?
Also seen plenty of people wander through a pack of kite surfers launching and landing at loaders and cant help but think at some point Darwinism applies...!?
Anything with a fin attached to it has to stay outside the black and white flags. Try telling the sharks that though 
There are examples that have popped up especially in Europe where kiting has been banned. Can't remember specifics but I do recall a fav spot in holland that was banned and crew were devastated. There have been other examples but I can't remember specifics.
So yes in short I suppose they can. Numbers and potential or perceivable threat will have them banned for sure just as skiing, jet skiing etc have designated areas now. Well on that note I suppose designated areas for kiting in a way is a kind of ban. You are banned from the rest of the beach.
We're on a large lake system in Gippsland and they didn't ban us, just moved the no boating zone to where we launch, and the 5 knot zone to one of our only flat water spots. :/
Id be likely to pay no attention to em...Like everything else it all comes down to common sense... Your not gonna try an kite say bondi on a busy day but if they put a no kite sign where theres no point then f them im goin anyway...
There are beaches you can't use a surfboard at certain times of the year. Same rules would apply. Ranger confiscates board and issues fine.
Loaders is an awesome spot. But the crew there are too scared to lay down the law to idiots who have no idea.
Unless they step up, it will be banned. I'm sure Waterhouse is taking odds on it as I write. Most kiters have commonsense, but as in every sport, a few idiots will ruin it for the rest of us. & it won't take an note on seabreeze to do it. The place is 100m from the Marine Rescue HQ on the broadwater. Go figure.
I've seen a few incidents there that I won't go into here that shocked me due to the carelessness and potential harm involved. And yes there were people not kiting making there own time at the "beach" right there in the middle of all the launching and landings & going on. This was weird in itself but they were to the north up against the wall slightly away from most of the action.
What was just as bad as the idiot kiters performance that day, was the non-reaction of the established crew on the beach to the incident as it occured. They all looked and stood around like nothing happened when something very bad had very obviously indeed nearly gone horribly wrong.
I had a word to the idiot straight away and he firmly denied any responsibility instead he opted to blame the inconsistency of the wind due to the trees instead of manning up. What a freakin moron. 20m away was a tree unaffected spot to land but he couldn be f****d tacking up there. Places like this are awesome and some idiots deserve there kite strings cut so they can't F it up for kiters who have a brain and some consideration for other beach users.
To be a kiter is not to be a part of some royal upper class as some boneheads seem to think, but it is to be one of a few very lucky souls on this earth.
Sorry to sound all wound up but impending beach closure is what we in byron are constantly facing, so to see stuff happen and nothing said or done is really a shame.
There are two jurisdictions you are using the kite in. Generally the local council owns 1 which is the beach or land area you set up on down to the high tide mark. Your local state waterways controls the other and we come under maritime law, hence the different distance off rules, and life jacket rules that apply in some states. In some cases national parks may control the land, and marine parks the water. Here in Byron we have 4 jurisdictions in the bay. Cape Byron marine park, national parks, waterways nsw, and Byron shire council. So to answer your question....basically you either have a beach ban imposed by council or water ban by waterways that take the form of a total ban, speed limit or distance off requirement that makes kiting impossible.
Recently we had some big wind and waves. The beaches were closed by lifeguards, that for the first time I've ever seen were trying to enforce the closure on everyone including surfers.. (Who ignored it). In the end they gave up.
Is there any current surf club members who know and can point me to the legality of a total beach closure, any written law. I used to be a beach inspector lifeguard years ago, and thought although we could declare a beach closed, there was nothing legally that could prevent someone from going in the water.
