Vacation rental bills in peril
TALLAHASSEE – Behind the scenes maneuvering by lobbyist Chip Case, Anna Maria City Attorney Becky Vose and her son, attorney Wade Vose, may have helped derail two vacation rentals bills being debated by state legislators.
Defeating either bill would preserve local governments’ ability to regulate vacation rentals.
During the House of Representatives’ Thursday, Feb. 22, Government Accountability Committee meeting, Rep. Jay Fant (R-Jacksonville) introduced a sexual predator/offender amendment to Rep. Mike La Rosa’s (R-St. Cloud) vacation rental bill, HB 773. With La Rosa’s support, the committee adopted the amendment with no objection.
According to Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy, the amendment was drafted by the Voses, tweaked by Case’s staff and introduced by Fant, who utilizes Case as a political consultant.
The amendment proposes that sex offenders or sexual predators be required to register with the local county sheriff’s office 48 hours prior to arrival at a vacation rental and the rental owner/operator would have to notify all property owners within 1,000 feet 24 hours before the guest’s arrival. Violating owner/operators would be subject to fines or the suspension or loss of their vacation rental license.
The amendment proposes that all online advertisements and rental postings prominently display the rental unit’s complete street address and include a link to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s sexual predator and offender website. Fant said the amendment would apply only to vacation rentals, and not to hotels or other public lodgings.
“If this is what we need to do to protect children and make people feel comfortable, we absolutely need to do it,” La Rosa said.
During Thursday’s Anna Maria Commission meeting, Murphy discussed the amended House bill and its potential impact on both the House and Senate bills.
“It doesn’t match the Senate bill (CS/SB 1400), and it’s a very onerous thing for the vacation rentals to have to go through this notification process. The Senate will probably not take that bill up because of that amendment, so we maybe have dodged a bullet,” Murphy said.
With Becky Vose present, Murphy thanked the trio for their “work, diligence and creativity.”
Additional amendment
The House committee adopted a second amendment proposed by David Santiago (R-Deltona) that would apply to all public lodging establishments, including hotels. This amendment pertains to sexual predators only. According to Florida law, a sexual predator has been convicted of a first-degree felony sex crime or two second-degree felony sex crimes. A sexual offender has been convicted of a sex offense involving a minor. [FAC COMMENT: REALLY, EDITOR? WHY DO YOU PUBLISH THIS INFORMATION THAT’S COMPLETELY INACCURATE?]
The amendment proposes that public lodging operators must ask at check-in if any guest is a sexual predator. If so, the operator shall immediately inform all the lodging’s other guests.
Rep. Cary Pigman (R-Sebring) asked if this would create a circumstance where he, his wife and his teenaged children are asked if they’re sexual predators when checking into a Disney hotel.
“While I laud your efforts, I get bogged down in how we’d execute this without making Florida the weirdest state in the world to get a hotel room,” Pigman said.
“This would make things a little bit weird, but it would make it safe,” La Rosa said before the Santiago amendment was adopted with no objection. [FAC COMMENT: REALLY, LA ROSA? 95%+ OF SEXUAL ASSAULTS ARE COMMITTED BY SOMEONE NOT ON THE REGISTRY? HOW DO YOU PROPOSE THIS WOULD MAKE PEOPLE SAFE?]
By a 13-11 vote, the committee reported favorably on the amended House bill and forwarded it to the Commerce Committee chaired by Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton). The amended bill was not listed on the committee’s Monday, Feb. 26 meeting notice.
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Is this a game for politicians?? See what class of people I can mess with and create laws/bills about to pad my resume, always stating some vague reference to “making people safer”…..??
Disgusting when it comes to being elected you just try to screw around with as many people as possible instead of trying to do things that actually matter.
So I’m confused. Did the trio introduce this amendment in a clever way to have the ENTIRE Senate bill 1400 not to be passed? In other words, did they introduce it, knowing it won’t be passed?
“It doesn’t match the Senate bill (CS/SB 1400), and it’s a very onerous thing for the vacation rentals to have to go through this notification process. The Senate will probably not take that bill up because of that amendment, so we maybe have dodged a bullet,” Murphy said.
With Becky Vose present, Murphy thanked the trio for their “work, diligence and creativity.”
Murphy and her trio of lobbyists will create whatever
means necessary to ensure the CASH COW in large fines that the counties imposes on homeowners for 1st time offense…I don’t believe that was the intention of this home rule law when it was adopted
Shame on our politicians
What is the end result? What is the lodgings new liability under this proposed law? If a hotel owner forgets, can’t demonstrate due diligence (these aren’t ISO certified corporations we’re talking about), or refuses to comply because they don’t want their new guests associating their business with sexual predators, or if a predator does not identify themselves either being deceitful or because they may not be sexual predators in the state of their residence, what is the consequence?
And what hotel owner is going to provide lodging to a sexual predator if they then must notify all their guests. How are they expected to demonstrate compliance?
On it’s face this law is exclusively designed to have a chilling effect on transient sexual predators looking for shelter.
And what redress do offenders or anyone else have against hotels who don’t understand the difference between sexual offenders and predators and attempt to apply this law to anyone with a reportable sex conviction?
Masturbating in a government building will probably get you on the sex offenders registry, I guess unless you were elected to be there?