ROCKLAND – A local nonprofit group is asking a court to order removal of a gate blocking access to a popular beach.

The Friends of St. George, which also uses the name Friends of Martinsville Beach, filed a complaint with Knox County Superior Court on Wednesday, asking that David and Amy Morey of St. George be ordered to take down an electric gate they reportedly installed last year.

The gate, on land owned by the Moreys, illegally blocks the road to Martinsville Beach, the Friends group claims.

The suit, filed on behalf of the Friends by attorney Judy Metcalf of Brunswick, argues that the public’s longtime use of the access road to the beach has established it as a public way.

“That road has been continuously used by the public for access to Martinsville Beach for at least 20 years, and indeed much longer,” the complaint states.

“By virtue of the continuous, adverse, open use by the general public of the road and beach, a prescriptive easement has been acquired for the general public,” the complaint concluded.

Contacted Thursday, Metcalf declined to name the officers of the nonprofit group, saying only that they were “people from the community.”

The attorney said her clients will argue that the long-term use of the road meets the definition in state law for establishing a prescriptive easement.

Along with the Moreys, John Hupper, a landowner whose property the access road traverses, also is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The Moreys bought a portion of Hupper’s land in May 2001, according to the suit.

In 2002, the suit claims, the Moreys, with Hupper’s permission, installed an electric gate across the access road, “blocking for the first time in over 40 years the use by the general public of the access road and the beach.”

Efforts to contact Hupper and the Moreys were unsuccessful Wednesday and Thursday. Metcalf said she did not know what attorney was representing the landowners.