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Sloppy Joe's noise waiver request
denied
At the May 4 Key West city commission meeting,
Sloppy's Joe's bar was denied its request that the city's noise
ordinance be waived for them so they could do major renovation from 2am
to 7am and stay open all their normal business hours. Most
businesses expect to be inconvenienced themselves during
remodeling (and often do close during construction), but Sloppy's wanted
to share the inconvenience with the community via all-night noise.
Last Stand opposed the
waiver, on the basis that no legal mechanism exists for waiving noise
rules (except for "special events", and Sloppy Joe's remodeling is
definitely not a special event, even if they sell tickets), and that
granting them a special dispensation would set a bad precedence. A
similar noise ordinance waiver requested for the storm drain cleaning
project on Truman Avenue was also denied, and also opposed by
Last Stand.
Cell
tower industry bill failed in Florida legislature
A bill which would have given the
telecommunications industry sweeping rights to build cellphone towers on
public property in Florida failed to pass in the
recently-concluded legislative session. More accurately, the bill
(Senate Bill 2774/House bill 1495) was withdrawn at the request of the
bill's proponents in the telecommunications industry, because of strong
opposition from environmental groups, municipalities concerned about
having zoning authority pre-empted, and the Florida League of Cities.
The bill originally requested by the
industry would have pre-empted local authority on essentially all
aspects of communications tower siting. Over about a year, the
bill morphed into carte blanche rights for cellphone companies to
use public property. The industry's use of the federal mandate for
"Enhanced 911" to justify the power grab is a red herring. It's
about money.
The industry promises to fight the cities
in court over tower locations. |
