Ordinance to halt nightly beach clutter
- Commissioners talked beach at the Thursday public hearing at the county commission regular.
- An ordinance establishing restrictions and regulations for items allowed to be placed on Navarre Beach overnight was questioned by Commissioner Gordon Goodin and County Engineer Roger Blaylock.
Goodin told commissioners that beaches have been cluttered at night and in order to make way for nesting sea turtles and emergency vehicles, the beaches need to be cleared. A similar ordinance was established in Walton County over the cluttering of the beach at night.
“The intent of this ordinance is to get people to not leave chairs, tables and other items on the beach unless they have a permit,” Goodin said.
As far as rental chairs and umbrella’s go, Goodin said the county has no say other than to ensure the furniture has permits assigned to them.
“The conflict we have is between the vendors who are renting chairs and people who live in high rises who don’t want to carry their items up to their residence,” Goodin said.
Goodin told commissioners that some high rises have areas to store beach equipment safely if the resident does not have the energy to carry the items back up to their condominium.
Beach residents such as Charles Holley of Navarre said when items were left on the beach at night, he would attempt to put them under the walkway leading to the beach, and had been threatened on numerous occasions because of his actions.
“I have been threatened in the past only because I am doing what I think is right,” Holley said. “I don’t see the sheriff’s getting out of their cars and picking up the leftover things on the beach.
“Who’s going to be responsible for picking up these items at night?”
Goodin told Holley that members of the county scope the beach every morning, and would report any leftover items on the beach. Any items that were left on the beach would have to be behind the flat land of the beach according to Blaylock.
Goodin said those members of the county would be sea turtle monitors who ride along the beach early in the morning looking for turtle eggs and night birds.
“Over the past few years, that beach has seen a lot of hurricanes,” Blaylock said. “There’s not much room left on the flattened portion of the beach.”
The commissioner told Holley that he would mention to the TDC the possibility of having the council talk with condominium owners to see if they couldn’t get a place for residences to store their beach items in case they were unable to take them to their condominium.
The ordinance was approved without objection
