On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 02:42:29 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:10:13 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote:

When did Florida start outlawing fishing and boating from the beach?

Just how does one find such picayune, strictly local laws?

Is there a boater vs swimmer lobby?

=====================================

That area is a heavily used public beach as you probably know. My
guess is that the town is trying to limit their liability from a
boater-swimmer collision. It may also be their way of banning PWC
rentals from the beach which are popular in some other areas.

How far out are the exclusion buoys? If not too far, you could anchor
outside and swim in.

This is interesting because I'm not sure they can do that.

Don't take this as fact, but Federal statute on beach ownership is to
the Highest High Mean Tide point - anything lower than that it open to
the public.

We just had a case down in Greenwich, CT and over in Jamestown, RI
where those owning beach front property wanted to restrict access to
"their" property which they took to mean Mean Lowest Low Tide. Ain't
so and the cases were bounced from state and Federal courts.

There was also an issue on a State beach about five years ago about
beaching boats where swimmers were. The State lost the case for the
same reason as the private owners.

Now, exclusionary zones are legal in terms of wake and speeds can be
regulated, but I'm not at all sure that landing rights can be denied.

Again, this is all from memory and I'm too lazy to look up the
references. Take it for what that's worth.

Later,

Tom