Pinellas County - Clearwater Beach - Sand Key - Belleair Shore/Beach
Indian Rocks Beach - Indian Shores - Redington Shores - No. Redington Beach
Redington Beach - Madeira Beach - Treasure Island - St. Pete Beach
Redington Shores addresses personal property left on beach
By Shawn Goldberg
REDINGTON SHORES — A revised ordinance to prohibit tents, chairs and volleyball nets left overnight on the
beach will be revised again. The commission discussed the possible positive and negative repercussions of this subject at a workshop meeting August 27. The morning after Independence Day 2008 the town reported 40 tents scattertered across the beach.
“I think the beaches are our most important asset and I think we have to protect it. It was horrendous after the fourth of July this year,” Commissioner Bob Holthaus said. The town believes an immense amount of tents and chairs renders the landscape unsightly and poses obstacles for those performing daily chores and maintenance of beach refurbishing.
“In the last few months we’ve had at least a dozen calls stating that they (the number of items left on the beach) have increased over the past two years. They never used to see it and now they’re seeing it all the time. It’s regular, leaving (things) on the beach for days at a time or a week,” Deputy Town Clerk Patti Herr said.
Commissioner John Branch’s major concern is that such structures attract people to sleep on the beach.
“A lot of people coming over from different areas, Tampa or somewhere across the bridge, they actually leave
those tents and shades up for a week. They’ll come back for the next weekend to use,” Vice Mayor Bert
Adams said.
The ordinance would prohibit chairs, lounges, tents, canopies and volleyball nets from being left on public beaches and in parks overnight between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Any item left “during such prohibited times will be considered abandoned property and subject to seizure and
disposition by the town,” according to the ordinance. Violators are “subject to a penalty not to exceed $500. Each day of such offense shall constitute a separate offense.”
“How do you know whose chair it is? How are you to collect that $500?” Commissioner Casey Wojcik inquired.
Vice Mayor Adams spoke of “red-tagging” items left on the beach by attaching a sticker or tag to the tent, chair or volleyball net.
“To give us the right to clean the beach up, where it could be presentable and not try to run anybody off or collect any money out of anybody, I think the whole thing was for our people to clean up the beach,” Commissioner Branch said.
“If all the condos said to their management that this is going to be happening, they see a tag on something out there, they may figure out whose it is and call them,” Building Official Steve Andrews said.
“I think this is overkill . . . the redtagging makes some sense but an ordinance makes no sense. This is way
more effort than we need for this problem,” Commissioner Wojcik said.
The red tag would be “something that says if this isn’t removed in so many hours it’s gone,” Vice Mayor Adams
said.
Mayor Jody Armstrong suggested going “back to the drawing board” and revising the ordinance specifically focusing on enabling the town to remove tents, chairs and volleyball nets left on the beach overnight. All commissioners agreed.
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