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Sarasota county to BAN SURFING???

Sarasota Surfing Ban
Sarasota Surfing Ban

This article has been copied and pasted from “Surfrider Foundation” – Suncoast Chapter

A concerned surfer/kite-boarder just brought to the chapters attention the fact that Sarasota county is considering a new ordinance(that will potentially BAN SURFING) and it is being put out for public review and vote on Wednesday, June 23, 2010.

The ordinance seeks to prohibit air sports, such as Kite Boarding and to a lesser extent Windsurfing (i.e. not many Windsurfers these days), from public swimming areas marked by buoys in Sarasota County. Interestingly, they are using the opportunity to ban Surfing as well.

People are needed to go to the meeting and tell Sarasota County that banning surfing is a VERY bad idea, and that they need to vote NO on this ordinance.

Location:

SARASOTA COUNTY ADMINISTRATION CENTER

1660 RINGLING BOULEVARD

COMMISSION CHAMBER

SARASOTA, FLORIDA

Meeting starts at 9:30 am

Public input to start at 1:30 pm

Info on the exact proposals and and interoffice memo are here:

Proposals-1

Interoffice Memo – Sarasota-1

If you can not make it to the meeting you can still make a big difference. Email the Sarasota County Commissioners (just copy and paste from this list)

cmason@scgov.net, jbarbett@scgov.net, sstaub@scgov.net, npatters@scgov.net, jthaxton@scgov.net

Either write in your own words (and keep it nice) that they should not even consider banning surfing anywhere. Or simply copy and paste this:

Banning surfing from within swim buoys in essences bans surfing in the entire county. How would a surfer paddle their board out to the break?

In addition, you are taking the right away from beach stewards who leave only footprints behind – i.e. hold beach clean-ups, are for the protection of shorelines, and are against drilling in the Gulf.

Last but certainly should not be least; surfing is known to have a positive economic impact on communities. From parking meters, to convenience stores, and local restaurants, the greater surfing community helps to support local areas. Think about it, during a cold front or when a hurricane is approaching, surfers are the only ones out feeding the economy and those days have the least amount of “swimmers” and regular beach goers.

For these reason and more I strongly suggest you do not adopt an ordinance that bans surfing from any part of any beach in Sarasota County.

2 responses to “Sarasota county to BAN SURFING???”

  1. Sean Dreznin Avatar
    Sean Dreznin

    I emailed the above prepared letter to all the email addresses above. I hope it helps, by Proxy, as I cannot attend this meeting.

  2. Sean Dreznin Avatar
    Sean Dreznin

    I spoke with two county commissioners today, and it appears this report provided by Surfrider Foundation is just a bit skewed.

    The discussion today seems to revolve around adding newer aerial surfing sports, (i.e. – Kite Surfing = which is quite popular in the Gulf which doesn’t get all that much surfable waves anyhow) would be banned within the public bouys.

    This ban, is in fact, already in place for surfing and jetskiing and boating… even bikers are warned with signs to walk their bikes through the public beach area…

    So in hindsight, two things.

    #1. Major props to Sarasota, rallying around a matter so close to our hearts and community!

    The commissioners mentioned a strong surfing turnout at the meeting!!

    #2. No changes that have any impact on surfing! When the surfs up, wax up the board and head out!

    Mahalo,
    Sean

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