On Mar 9, 3:50�am, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


I believe that Florida does reciprocate with registrations and honors
my CT registration if I go to Florida for a month of fishing. *Now if
that is true and they honor the registration policies and procedures
of other states for transient use, then it follows that if an owner
who lives and normally operates his boat in a state that does not
require visible registration or even registration period is perfectly
legal in Florida waters up until they pass the 90 day period at which
time they are in violation of Florida law.


Shortwave, there's a difference between reciprocity of registration
and reciprocity of "no registration required". You're 100% right, your
CT registration will be honored in Florida. In fact, you can boat in
Florida for a full 90 consecutive days on your CT sticker, or up to a
total of 180 days per year.

Florida requires all watercraft on the waters of its state to be
registered. So does Washington (unless it's an unpowered skiff or
sailing dinghy) for that matter, and so do a probable majority of
states. You are considered to be in compliance in Florida if your boat
has a current registration from any state, and it will be honored. If
you come from a state that doesn't require boats to be registered, you
get a warning ticket to (as you precisely stated) "inform you about
the law". Florida is no more required to reciprocate a *lack* of
regulation than it would be to allow people from California, Oregon,
or Washington to carry small amounts of medical marijuana for personal
use while vacationing at Disney World. Coming from a state where an
activity isn't regulated has never meant that you can conduct that
activity without any regulation when visiting another state that
chooses to regulate it.

This cop is a jerk, no dobut. But if he is writing warning tickets to
out of state boaters with no registrations, he's not, as has been
claimed, ticketing people who are "totally legal". Something "totally
legal" in (say) Nebraska, Kansas, or Alabama doesn't have to be legal
in Florida- and that would include running a boat without a
registration.

Florida is a sovereign state with every right to control or regulate
activities within its own borders. If the state requires that all
watercraft have a state registration of some sort, then boaters from
states without registration need to stay out of Florida, apply for a
Florida registration, or put up with getting warning tickets that
carry a two-week window of opportunity to get a registration or remove
the boat from Florida. If the law is unpopular with the residents of
Florida, then they should lobby their state assembly or legislature to
amend or repeal it.

It does sound like the cop is annoying as hell, but he's enforcing a
valid law.





In effect, issuing a warning - a misdemeanor - for potentially
violating a law is not accepted law enforcement practice. *To put it
another way, the officer in question is issuing warnings for
potentially violating a law when he has no knowledge that the law will
be broken. He can only issue a warning at his discretion if the law
HAS been broken.

And if a boat is operating in Florida without a registration from
either Florida or some other state, a law has been broken.