Should the State Preempt Municipal Sex Offender Ordinances?
One of the most common questions we get concern residency restrictions. Since Miami Beach passed a municipal ordinance 15 years ago, restricting where persons required to register as sex offenders can live through sex offender residency restrictions (SORRs) have spread through our state (and nationwide) like the Ebola virus.
I repeatedly hear the disappointment in people’s voice when they tell me they found something 1000 feet away from anywhere children might congregate but the police still tell them they can’t live there. The conversations usually go like this…
“So the law says I can live anywhere as long as it’s not 1000 feet from a school or park?”
-“Well, Yes and No. Florida Statute 775.215 sets a 1000 foot residency restriction, but most Counties have their own ordinances.”
“So, What’s the County distance?”
-“That depends on the County. Every County is different. You have to search for the municipal code online or call the County clerk to get a copy of it and then see what it says.”
“Can I call someone at the County and ask them where I can live?”
-“Good luck with that one! You can try, but from tons of experience, you have a better chance of getting no answer or the wrong answer than anything useful”
“OK, so I need to be compliant with the State SORR, and figure out what the County SORR is and then search for a place to live?”
-“Well, no. That’s just the first and second step. Your City may also have it’s own SORR.”
“Great! So I have to check three different sets of regulations to find the one with the largest exclusion zone and use that as my distance?”
-“Not exactly. The distance is one thing but you also have to check what places encompass the exclusion zone. For example; a 1000 foot exclusion zone that includes all school bus stops and private playgrounds many be more restrictive than a 2500 foot exclusion zone that only covers schools and day cares.”
“So where do I get a map of all the school bus stops?”
-“They don’t have one”
“So am I supposed to just drive around looking for schools, parks, playground, bus stops and figure it out myself?”
-“Well I wouldn’t do that either. Your municipality may have a proximity ordinance where it’s illegal to even go within a certain distance of one of these places. Seminole and Brevard, for example, have a 1000 foot buffer. If you stop at a Starbucks within 1000 feet of a playground you don’t even know is there, you can get arrested.”
“WTF?!?! This is ridiculous! I don’t think this has anything to do with protecting children. This is just a trap to get us locked up again or cause us to be homeless. The State should do something create some uniform laws instead of this maze of BS!”
-“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
The above frustrating conversation is one I have multiple times per week. Yes, the state SHOULD do something to preempt the patchwork of ordinances across the different counties and cities. Not only will it help returning citizens to find stable housing and live with supportive family members, but it will prevent clustering of registrants in certain areas, it will reduce homelessness, it will help law enforcement better track registrants and as numerous studies have concluded, all that will make the public safer, which is supposed to be the goal here.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, in 2019 Florida lawmakers pitched 18 “preemption bills”. These bills sought to control County and City ordinances on matters like the use of plastic straws and fertilizer! As the Sentinel article points out, local governments “can’t regulate beekeepers, drones, ownership of dangerous animals, disposal of bio-waste or smoking in public venues.” Unquestionably these are all important issues, but if a lawmaker sees it important for the State to preempt manure laws, someone should definitely be looking into these horse-shit SORRs!
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I would like to eventually move to Fort White Florida. Can anybody give any feed back concerning how they do things up there? I even considered North Carolina…..
Each time I read about Florida and other uber-restrictive states, my jaw drops and my heart goes out to those affected. My state has no distance restrictions, and preempts any local ordinances. The only exception is one city that was grandfathered in with a 1000 foot exclusion, but only from schools.
My advice, if those in FL continue to enact harsher restrictions, move out of FL and leave the state in God’s hands. These wicked, unjust laws will only bring judgement from the One whose laws are just and immutable. Watch what happens…
The reality is that for those who have families and businesses here, that’s easier said than done.
Good Night
That is what I did…got the hell out of there…after serving 24.5 months for a Technical Probation Violation that was set up by Probation Officer Ms. Francheschi out of Tampa Florida-who lied lied lied on the stand-then I found out my lawyer sold me out-little short fat fck-azoid, another Jew Boy attorney…., after 24 days I left..sold what I had…Kissed my mother good bye….and now reside in a US Territory living in unencumbered freedom…here I can do what I want…interact with humanity and help others…IN FLORI-DUH, my testicles where held hostage…I will never ever pay tax dollars to the fat donut eating LEO WHORES!.
remember, I am not being abusive to others, just announcing the facts and realities of the money making monger system in Florida…It is all your choices to live there…get the hell out to make a better life for yourselves and your families
make it a tasty day!
“Another Jew Boy attorney”?
I am gratified that you finally made it out of Florida. For your sake, but also for ours.
Jacob – thanks for noticing that comment and pointing it out. I apologize for not screening it out properly. I’ll leave this ignorant, anti-Semitic comment up here for a couple days so people can see why one can get kicked out of FAC. Goodbye Island Chef!
I agree with FAC about the Jew boy attorney comment. In my opinion Island Chef is just venting his frustrations about Florida. I too got out of Florida and don’t regret it in the least, it was the best decision for me. I still have family there. BUT IT’S NOT A reason to kick Island chef out of FAC.should have spotted that before you posted it.
I don’t like anti-semantic comments…even from blacks using the N word. We all understand how a person can get so frustrated to the point of name calling. Much of the comments here are from ppl just venting their frustrations.
We can’t afford to have FAC’s platform used to express bigotry. Doing so spooks potential donors, de-legitimizes legitimate criticisms of, say, Ron Book, and could have other unintended consequences. People are free to take such speech to another platform of their choosing.
For many people, it’s not difficult to express frustration without resorting to bigotry. But for bigots, it’s much harder to do so. If you can’t express frustration without expressing bigotry, then frustration may not be your biggest problem.
Of course, I am taking no particular position on whether the author should have been permanently banned, taken a timeout, etc. But FAC had several prudent options here, and exercised one.
FAC is comprised of a surprisingly diverse constituency, united by their awareness that Florida urgently needs sensible sex crime reform.
In 2008, I began work on a mapping tool with an address lookup for identifying properties that fell outside exclusion zones. I figured it would be easy enough to get a list of schools, daycares, et cetera to mark parameters around the bordering buildings and land property lines to make up that map. This would eventually go nationwide. However, it turns out that getting a map of daycares is impossible in California as there were apparently laws in place protecting that information from public access. I was dumbfounded. Ultimately due to lack of interest by fellow registrants and organizations, i abandoned the project. I would be interested in reviving the project if enough interest is shown, but knowing now that I can build around a crowd-sourcing model to allow contributions by volunteers.
In Florida and I am only knowledgeable on St. Lucie County apparently people get an approved State Liscense to operate a home daycare center. Although they have NO clients (children) because of their active license they prevent a person who has to register from moving into their neighborhood. It is an atrocity and pathetic that people feel that they have to do this do to fear and ignorance about recidivism and the registry use of prevention. It is just causing more harm. Also the lawmakers pass these laws for constituent votes and empathy at the price of so many other lives. It just saddens me how many people of all ages are homeless and can’t be with their families because of this cruelty and fear.
The scary thing about having the state rule is that the legislators will pick the most restrictive requirements to please all the cities and counties and then we would all be worse off. I like the idea of only state requirements but hate to give Lauren Book the opportunity to make it worse on everyone.
I just need one registrant or family member to train and Lauren Book will be removed from office. I work in salons and barbershop and have gotten ppl elected and kicked out of office in California. Why not do the same in Florida? Odd how we have been give a list to recruit from. Let’s harness from our ranks the talents within. Listen and learn from FAC but also mobilize in your own way in this fight your voice matters! If only to skip that morning coffee to send a few bucks to our Florida Action Committee…everything you do helps. Inventory your talents, strengths and resources push forward…
Unfortunately until we can get a court ruling in our favor that addresses some aspect the county and municipal codes and ordinances we are going to have to continue to struggle to comply. The additional wrinkle is that we need a ruling in one of the Florida District Courts of Appeal because a local ruling will have no effect for us. We’d be unbelievably lucky to have a politician that would take a stand in our favor. The highly conservative political climate in Florida would make a stand political suicide.
As was mentioned in the post our problem here in Brevard County is the proximity ordinance. It can make life difficult and scary.
I don’t have an answer for the issue. I think that all we can do is to start at the lowest levels in our local governments and slowly build support for modifying or eliminating the ordinances. When we gather support at one level we then start working on the next level up. If we can pick up enough support then we can approach our local commissioners or council members with the issue. If there’s enough support from below it gives them an “out” if the public/political storm gets too bad.