City Commission Conference Meeting on 2023-10-03 at 1:30

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Fort Lauderdale City Commission 3h 41m 3 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 3 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the dispute over boat‑ramp access and business licensing at George English Park?

Dean Trantalis 0:00

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the City Commission conference meeting this uh third day of October. Wow, we're in October already. Um And uh I appreciate all those folks being here today. Uh so let us begin our meeting. Uh we'll start out with neighborhood presentation uh neighbor presentations. Uh William Schneider regarding boat ramp access for tours. Mr. Schneider, please. Please come to the podium. Give you a few minutes.

Dean Trantalis 0:33

Please go ahead. Push the button, push the button that says no right there. There you go.

William Schneider 0:39

All right. Um I don't know if you recall this is actually like the third time I'm here on this matter.

Unknown 0:43

You recall.

William Schneider 0:44

All right. Um haven't gotten anywhere. Actually gotten worse. Um they

Dean Trantalis 0:48

won't renew my business license for the tax division for this year unless I provide an alternate um water access. Uh

William Schneider 0:57

I believe I should be grandfathered and this new law or rule or whatever you guys call it ordinance was put in after my company's been around first. I've been around way longer. I've lost my house already. I've lost three employees. I'm on the brink of losing my entire business. This is serious now. Um I've been trying to do the right thing and could take these routes for over a year now and I keep getting on deaf ears. So at this point in time this is my last plea. I'm about to go out of business that I started in two thousand

Dean Trantalis 1:26

and six. Is there anything you can do to help me? Well is there any other place in the city that you can operate your business? Well the problem no, because I have a beachfront pretty much location that I've been there for so many years. It's established. It's I pay rent. I ha I do everything I'm supposed to do. They changed the the policy of what's considered conducting business. I don't take meet customers, I don't take money, I don't do contracts, I don't do repairs, I don't do this long list of things that you're not supposed to do at the ramps. I have all that at my location. All I do at the ramp is access the water. You you had you had addressed us before. I mean I said three, but this is my second with you.

Dean Trantalis 2:02

Yes sir Remind me exactly what is your business? What do you I have a tour I have uh well I do several I do several different things there. Um I'm on Sunrise Boulevard east of the Overpass the bridge. I do scooter rentals, I do different types of tours throughout the city, scooter tours, golf cart tours, land base, food tours. These are my land base. I also do water. I have jet ski tours as well as well. I used to do jet ski rentals many years ago. I s I had too many problems damaging my skis, letting people go unattended. I do not let people go unattended. I only do tours with the jet skis. And that's where I've got grouped

William Schneider 2:36

in with the rental That they were doing rentals out of the park and that's not what I do. I don't do rentals, I strictly do tours

Dean Trantalis 2:43

and that's where I'm running into this huge problem. No, you no Because of what's going on right now, you're not doing any this is affecting your water part. You're still doing the land tours, it's not being affecting that at all. No, but you have to understand. It well it is because a lot of times it's grouped as a as a like a VIP package, like they do uh

William Schneider 2:59

multiple activities grouped

Dean Trantalis 3:01

together. Part

William Schneider 3:01

of that tour would be like, you know, whining and dining and then the next day they come in the morning we'll do a round of

Dean Trantalis 3:07

Birch State Park, you know, on bicycles and then we'll go to the jet skis and that would be all one group activity. So yeah, I'm I'm losing across the board big time because of this.

Unknown 3:15

Water base, is it do you have boats too

Dean Trantalis 3:17

Unknown 3:17

just jet skis? And

Dean Trantalis 3:18

the jet that's the jet ski part that's being impacted right now. How much of your business is the jet ski firm? About sixty percent. How many jet skis do you have? Seven. Including my tour guides. Um I mean I I don't know if it's a pro could well I'd like uh um is does that conclude your remarks? I have to present yeah, but I'm not sure. I'm gonna ask Mr. Thornburg to come up so he can respond. So if you why don't you just take a seat right there for a second? And Mr Thornburg, could you please explain to the Commission and to the audience what our policy is and why this has uh changed the the uh