HOLMES BEACH – City officials are growing concerned about the commercial activity occurring at the state-owned, county-operated Kingfish Boat Ramp in Holmes Beach.
City officials are also concerned about motorists parking across the street from the boat ramp and crossing Manatee Avenue on foot to get to the boat ramp.
Mayor Judy Titsworth expressed her concerns during the Aug. 25 city commission meeting.
“I don’t know if you all have noticed, but there’s a lot more vehicles, not vehicle trailers, taking up the parking at Kingfish,” she said.
“We’ve always had local captains and fishermen picking up people there, but now we’ve got boat rental companies moving in. And they’re the pontoon boats that can carry one, two families. So, they’ve added to the parking. Even though it’s a commercial use that’s not allowed, we have to catch them. We have to be there watching them, sighting them. Once the pontoons came in, then you noticed the jet ski guy. Then you noticed now we don’t have enough vehicle parking,” Titsworth said.
Continuing, Titsworth said the city has no objection to cars and trucks and boat trailers parking at the boat ramp, but she said the parking lot is now being more heavily used for commercial purposes that reduce parking for recreational boat users and charter fishing captains.
Titsworth said charter fishing boats and charter boats are only allowed to dock at the boat ramp for 15 minutes at a time.
“They’re only allowed to be attached to the dock for 15 minutes and we will give them a citation if we see them staging and waiting on their people to get there,” Police Chief Bill Tokajer said.
“There’s going to have to be more discussion and also in the county and how we’re going to address it. I reached out to them to try to see what they can do to solve the issue,” Titsworth said.
Commissioner Carol Whitmore noted the Island area fishing charter captains have picked up their clients at the boat ramp for many years.
“I don’t like the tourists going up and renting a pontoon and having 12 people on it, but it’s still the same thing. It’s a commercial business. This may affect the islanders,” Whitmore said.
The Kingfish Boat Ramp discussion prompted comparisons to the high volume of personal watercraft rentals and other commercial activity taking place along the Palma Sola Causeway portion of Manatee Avenue. Tokajer said he saw approximately 50 jet skis in that area during the previous weekend.
Titsworth said the watercraft rental vendors make their own access ramps simply by backing their trucks down to the water.
“There’s no enforcement at all,” she said of the causeway activities.
Titsworth said she spoke with District 3 Manatee County Commissioner Tal Siddique and he told her the county may need to reconsider its agreement with the city of Bradenton that designates Bradenton as having the primary enforcement jurisdiction for the causeway area.
Tokajer said some personal watercraft and pontoon boat rental operators stage their commercial activities on the east side of the bridge, and when it’s time to meet their clients, they drive over to the boat ramp to drop off the boat or personal watercraft being rented.
“Deliberate work-arounds,” Commissioner Dan Diggins said.
Whitmore said she’s never seen personal watercraft depart from the Kingfish Boat Ramp, but she sees them all the time along the causeway.
Tokajer said he’s seen pickup trucks with trailers containing four personal watercraft each at the Kingfish Boat Ramp, which he suspects are being offered for rent.
“We had that issue at 63rd Street as well,” Commissioner Terry Schaefer said.
“And there was a jet ski crash in Anna Maria this past weekend with a death,” Tokajer noted.
ADDITIONAL CONCERNS
Titsworth said many people are parking their vehicles in the grassy area across the street from the Kingfish Boat Ramp and crossing Manatee Avenue on foot to access the boat ramp.
“If you’re going to park there, it has to be parallel with the flow traffic,” she said, noting diagonal parking is not allowed there.
“They all got tickets,” Tokajer said in regard to some recent offenders.
Titsworth said Tokajer viewed videos of parents and their young children parking along the south side of Manatee Avenue and crossing the busy street to board a rental boat.
“You’re not allowed to park on right of ways on state roads,” Titsworth said. “Are we going to be liable if we continue to look the other way, and someone gets hit because we’re not enforcing state laws?”
Tokajer said he’s been in touch with the Florida Department of Transportation.
“I sent them videos showing the people leapfrogging between cars with kids in coolers and they were not happy. They said that they would get back with me but they’re going to take action. I suspect that they’ll put up the signs of no parking on the right of way over there,” Tokajer told the commission.
