State lawmakers love to meddle with local laws, community values

If I was 18 and living down the street from a vacation rental, I’d be like “Whoopee. Hell yes. Let’s party.”

Residing in a neighborhood of perpetual bacchanalia with gaggles of inebriated celebrants wobbling past my house in the early morning hours, well, if I was 18 that would sound like the most fun hereabouts since Fort Lauderdale entertained so many beery spring breakers.

Unhappily, I’m not 18. Sharing my street with knuckleheads has lost its allure. Yet, they come, an ever-changing cast of party animals who’ve altered the very character of my neighborhood.

So while short-term renters howl at the moon, long-term residents howl at city hall. And hoteliers aren’t too happy either, as they compete with vacation rentals while working under a stack of insurance requirements and health and safety regulations. South Florida mayors and city commissioners can hardly show up at a civic function without hearing complaints.

So Florida’s tourist towns do what they can. Which isn’t much, thanks to state law. Cities have passed noise restrictions, limited parking, capped the number of overnight occupants, placed some time limits on short-term rentals, enacted fees, required licenses. Lauderdale-bythe-Sea passed an ordinance designed to shut down noisy pool parties after 10 p.m. (Good luck enforcing that.)

But even those tepid city ordinances could well be erased by a state legislature that delights in meddling in local affairs. Last week, Sen. Greg Steube, a veritable maestro of state laws designed to bring city and county governments to heel, filed a preemption bill that would wipe out local regulation of vacation rentals.

All that would become the purview of state government.

Cities would be prohibited from even inspecting these joints. Steube’s bill (SB 1400) states that the Florida Division of Hotels and Restaurants shall be “solely responsible for all inspections.”

That’s an outfit allotted just 308 positions statewide, that last fiscal year carried out 111,449 restaurant and hotel inspections. Not to mention overseeing 56,000 elevator inspections. Steube’s bill would add 130,000 vacation rentals to the agency’s workload (In the unlikely prospect that all the state’s vacation rentals bother to register). Inspections would become more aspirational than actual.

According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Steube, a property rights zealot, became peeved a couple of years ago when he was told that city ordinances would limit the short-term rental use of a home he was considering as an investment property.

Apparently, the Sarasota Republican was similarly inspired when he learned that he needed a permit to remove trees on his property in Sarasota County, the Herald-Tribune reported. So he has also filed a bill (SB 574) for the upcoming (beginning this week) legislative session that would “preempt to the state the regulation of the trimming, removal or harvesting of trees and timber on private property” and prohibit those chumps in local government from having a say in the matter. Steube might as well stand in the Senate chamber and shout, “Timmmmmmber!”

It seems such a contradictory predilection. Conservative Republicans rail about big government mandates and federal interference in state prerogatives, because local folks know what’s best. Yet they fairly delight in passing bills that appropriate the powers of city and county elected officials.

No issue is too petty. Steube has also introduced a bill (SB 378) that would undo local ordinances that prohibit drivers from backing into parking garage parking spaces.

We’re already suffering from a long list of preemption laws that preempt common sense. Florida statutes won’t allow cities and counties to prohibit smoking in music venues, patio dining areas, parks, beaches. They can’t demand that restaurants disclose the nutritional content of drinks or dishes. Can’t keep biomedical waste out of county dumps. Can’t ban plastic bags or Styrofoam containers. Can’t regulate drones.

Local governments can’t enact limits on beekeeping. Or prohibit homeowners from owning exotic animals, even jungle cats or cobras. Other than Miami-Dade County, which has a special home-rule exemption in the state Constitution, local governments can’t ban pit bulls.

Cities and counties can’t enact living wage ordinances. Or mandate paid sick leave.

And the Florida Legislature, bowing to the wants of the all-powerful NRA, has mandated that local governments can’t prohibit concealed weapons in parks or playgrounds or libraries or other public buildings. They can’t regulate the sale or possession of ammunition. They can’t mess with firing ranges. They can’t sue firearms companies. City and county elected officials risk a $5,000 fine and removal from office if they “knowingly and willfully violate” preemption Florida’s sacred gun laws.

And if Steube gets his way, my neighborhood can look forward to more unfettered partying, late-night hell-raising and a fleet of strange cars parked up and down the block. (In fairness to Steube, his bill does prohibit vacation rentals from indulging in prostitution or drug sales.)

If only I was 18. Preemption might seem a lot less offensive.

Fred Grimm (@grimm_fred and leogrimm@gmail.com), a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has worked as a reporter or columnist in South Florida since 1976.