CALL TO ACTION: Oppose HB 987: Public Lodging Establishments
On April 10th, The Florida House of Representatives amended House Bill 987: Public Lodging Establishments, to require Persons required to register as sex offenders report to the Sheriff’s office where they will be staying, 48 hours before an intended stay at a Public Lodging Establishment, regardless of how long they will stay at the location!
In addition, operators of a Public Lodging Establishment who have a Person required to register as a sex offender staying at or within 1000 feet of their establishment, must notify all guests staying there.
Not only will this be impossible to comply with (you will need to report to the local Sheriff 48 hours before even arriving!), but burdens the travel rights of persons who have served their time and without any individualized assessment of their risk to the community.
It is IMPORTANT that you contact your legislator to tell them to OPPOSE this bill! NOW!
A copy of the Amendment can be found here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/987/Amendment/348655/PDF
A copy of the Bill can be found here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/987/BillText/c2/PDF
You can find House Committees and Representatives serving here:Â https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Committees/committees.aspx
You can find all Representatives here:Â Florida House of Representatives Complete List
You can find all Senators here:Â Florida Senate Complete List
You can find your specific State and US Representatives here: https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
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I can envision in the near future laws requiring all stores to install facial recognition systems, and immediately announce to the patrons that a registered sex offender has just entered the store. The stampede to the exits would be fun to watch. If this stupid law is enacted, I would encourage every person on the registry who can afford it to stay at one of those places whenever possible. The owners of the establishments would certainly flood their representative’s offices with complaints about how much money they are losing because of the law. Legislators pay attention when money is involved.
I don’t think that would happen.They’re privety owned, they will be like Disney, refuse to allow registered citizens to stay at their establishments.
Our best bet is call write opposing. Getting everyone one who you know to do the same. This bill and amendment to it is really low balling.
Support the ex-post Facto – sustanor, case.
Don’t lose hope, don’t stop believing.
Thanks Sailtime!
It’s situations like these where we all need to come together and do our parts.
No, you don’t get it. Facial recognition would be used to deny you entrance into the privately-owned store or staying at a hotel. Just like theme parks who want to block all sex offenders from entering their property like that guy Gerald Youmans who’s been all over the news recently.
https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/local/2019/04/21/poulsbo-port-orchard-sex-offender-residences-zoning-changes/3524869002/
Laws Effecting Innkeepers
Many cities and states have laws on the books that require hotels to collect that information from guests and to show it to police if they stop by. The Supreme Court ruled that the latter is unconstitutional.
In Los Angeles, if a hotel owner refused to let police peek at their records, he or she could be charged with a misdemeanor, meaning potential jail time and a $1,000 fine. Disturbingly, as pointed out by Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic,the law turned hotels into a kind of state surveillance arm — forcing them to collect detailed information and then forcing them to turn it over without any judicial process. A group of L.A. hotel owners sued the city, saying this violated their Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches; in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with them. That means a hotel now has the right to protect guests’ privacy — but only if it wants to.
 It is a violation of your right of privacy if the hotel discloses to another person which room you are staying in. However, a hotel may disclose whether or not you are a guest at the hotel unless you expressly instruct them not to do so.
Provided that the laws against discrimination are not violated, an innkeeper is not under obligation to receive as a guest everyone who applies. S/he has the right to reject or expel persons whom s/he reasonably deems objectionable. A person becomes a guest only if s/he is received to be treated as a guest and the intention to become such must be communicated to the innkeeper or his/her agent.
A guest of the registered occupant of a room at a hotel, who shares such room with its occupant without the knowledge or consent of the hotel management, will not be treated as a guest of the hotel. It is to be noted that the rights of hotel guests are not assignable or transferable. Therefore, if a registered guest, without permission from anyone representing the hotel, transferred a room to another person, that person will not have any right to its possession. Morningstar v. Lafayette Hotel Co., 211 N.Y. 465 (N.Y. 1914). It may be noted that a person who is not a guest and has no intention of becoming a guest will not have the legal right to enter or remain in a hotel against the will of the innkeeper. Such a person has a duty to leave peacefully when requested.
A guest admitted to an inn can be removed thereafter by the innkeeper for:
Ů refusal to pay his bill;
Ů becoming obnoxious to the other guests by his/her own fault;
Ů becoming a person of general bad reputation; or
Ů behaving in a disorderly manner.
An innkeeper can refuse to entertain “objectionable characters” that would otherwise injure his/her business and placing himself or his guests in a hazardous, uncomfortable, or dangerous situation. Raider v. Dixie Inn, 198 Ky. 152, 153-154 (Ky. 1923).
Florida does NOT want sex-offenders in their state-period!!
This is why they are drumming up unconstitutional and seemingly downright illegal laws to force sex offenders out! One man wanting to visit his daughter in Florida called the Sheriff’s office to let them know he was coming and the Sheriff flat out told him “We don’t want you here in this state and if you come here and we find you you will be arrested and possibly spend time behind bars!” So, there it is. Florida is trying to become a ‘sex-offender free’ state.
There’s nothing Florida can do to keep sex offenders out. Over 95% of reported sex offenses are perpetrated by someone with no criminal record. If Florida targets those with prior sex offense convictions— whose recidivism rates average in the single digits— they are playing a game of wac-a-mole and endangering Florida families with their security theater.
The sheriff who threatened to arrest someone for visiting his daughter is powerless to do so and in a weak position— unless that visitor is establishing a residence and expressly refusing to register in person as required by statute.
So let me get this straight. If I were a registrant, and I gave 48-hour notice to the cops, then checked into the Anita Bryant Gargantimus Hotel with, say, 400 rooms at 90% occupancy, then what would the hotel have to do: send a bellhop to each room, knock on the door, and say “Excuse me, hotel guest, but there’s a registered sex offender staying at this hotel in room 234″…? At 2 minutes a contact minimum, that’s a minimum of 12 hours to contact everyone in the hotel. Not to mention the manufactured fear they drum into their other guests.
No, this scenario would never happen. The first thing the hotel would do is to ban registrants from even staying. BONUS: Since you already contacted the cops, they put you on the registry for life plus a year after death. Fun times!
So should this draconian bill pass into law, I wonder if those areas that have a 2,500′ would be compelled to abide by the county/municipality rules.
That would make it even worse, not only for the registrants, but also for the public lodging facilities.
The whole thing begs for a lawsuit and I am fully against the state of FL spending monies in the courts to support this lawless infringement of our rights
This bill as most laws in Florida concerning so-called “sex offenders” is designed to make it even easier for useless lazy law enforcement to violate registered citizens and get them back in the pri$on $ystem.
This protects no one – it only enriches the state with bigger numbers of citizens they add for life on their registry! People have no idea that once on you can never get off (by evil design).
So insane that it defies logic – in other words, it is Florida politics as usual. This must stop!