I realize that this is fiction, but I feel like this actually happens. There are private beaches. I'm not sure that they are to the extreme where you have to pay admission, but there are definitely private beaches. I have actually been to a couple. It sucks that the world is this way. There are laws against this in America but people still seem to try to claim the areas in front of their property as their own. America has what is called an "easement" around their borders. This means that the land that borders the oceans is owned by America and can be used by anyone (at this point in time). People still try to claim it as their own though. The private beaches that I visited were in other countries where Resorts owned a large section in front of the ocean, and therefore claimed the ocean as their own. If you look up the story of Mahatma Gandhi, this is somewhat, what he was against. Not so much admission to beaches. He didn't agree with limiting the access to salt which came from the oceans. This story kind of reminded me of him.