Although the article states the directive allows them use of the beach 14 meters from the high water line, it appears there is no clarification as to whether that use is exclusive to the hotel. And unless I'm missing something, the water line defines depth of the beach but no mention of width.

I was looking at the Sunset Beach web cam and unless it's an optical illusion, it looked like their umbrellas were covering about a third of the beach at Maho. There was hardly walking room on the dry sand never mind tossing a random towel down.