k thanks just seeing if there was a more "elegant" way. for those that need something here's what I created real quick. Basically on an author instance set users to just read permissions and putting this in your page.jsp will flip the switch to wcmmode=disabled
// check permission and change wcm mode on author if ((WCMMode.fromRequest(request) == WCMMode.EDIT)){ Session currentSession = slingRequest.getResourceResolver().adaptTo(Session.class); if (!currentSession.hasPermission(currentPage.getPath(),"set_property")){ WCMMode disabled = WCMMode.DISABLED.toRequest(request); } }