Anna Maria taking vacation rental owners to court
ANNA MARIA – The city plans to file a lawsuit against the owners of a vacation rental home cited for five noise ordinance violations within a nine-month period.
Located at 313 Magnolia Ave., the rental is managed by Vacasa and owned by the Orlando-based Mangoes on Magnolia LLC registered to brothers Mukesh and Raju Patel.
During the May 18 code enforcement hearing at city hall, Special Magistrate Jerry Buhr declared the rental to be a public nuisance. Buhr’s declaration will be the basis of the lawsuit that City Attorney Becky Vose will soon file with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court in Manatee County. Vose plans to file the suit after the city receives the court reporter’s verbatim transcript of the special magistrate hearing at which Code Enforcement Manager Sandy Olson presented the city’s case.
“The injunctive relief that I recommend we go after in this particular case is a suspension of the owner’s right to use that property as a vacation rental for one year.” – Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy
Olson’s May 18 presentation included testimony from two Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputies, the deputies’ body camera footage and testimony from two neighboring property owners. According to Olson, noise violation citations carrying $35 fines were issued to five different rental guests between June 5, 2021 and March 16 of this year.
The special magistrate hearing and the pending lawsuit were discussed at the May 26 city commission meeting, with the commission voting 4-0 in favor of filing the lawsuit.
“It was very well-handled by Sandy,” Vose told the commission. “She prosecuted the case and was successful. There were five separate noise violations in a period of nine months, and the noise violations were just horrendous. We had the body camera videos that were shown to the special magistrate and the people who lived on either side of this residence testified as to how it affected their lives. The noise violations were typically at 2 o’clock in the morning and the body camera audio shows how loud it was.
“The special magistrate made a ruling in accordance with our code provision that the property was a public nuisance,” she continued. “Special magistrates in Florida don’t have jurisdiction to do anything but declare them a public nuisance. They don’t have the right to give injunctive relief. Our code does allow us to file suit in circuit court to ask the court to declare the public nuisance and give us injunctive relief to stop it going forward,” Vose said.
Mayor Dan Murphy detailed the injunctive relief sought.
“The injunctive relief that I recommend we go after in this particular case is a suspension of the owner’s right to use that property as a vacation rental for one year. I feel very strongly that a one-year suspension should get the message across that this type of behavior in our city is not allowed. This is a residential community and this man has totally disrupted the lives of the people on either side with complete disregard. He lives out of town. This is simply an investment property. I’m not trying to take away his livelihood, but this can’t go on. I think we need to take a strong stand against this noise complaint and against this property. And if there’s others out there, we need to go after them as well,” Murphy said.
“This is the worst actor in the city. Five complaints in nine months. This is what was going on at three o’clock in the morning at this house,” Murphy said before showing the commission one of the body camera videos shown to the special magistrate.
“I think our sheriff’s deputies did a great job. It’s not a job I would want. I applaud our deputies for how they handled these noise violations,” Murphy said.
Commissioner Robert Kingan asked Vose about the likelihood of the city winning this case in court.
“You can never make a guarantee about litigation. We’re going to give it our best,” Vose replied.
Vose said she was aware of a case in Bradenton in which a nightclub was declared a public nuisance for repeat noise violations, but she’s not aware of any cases similar to Anna Maria’s planned lawsuit seeking injunctive relief from a problematic vacation rental home.
“Hopefully, we’ll be successful and we’ll get some relief for the people in the neighborhood,” Vose said.
“Even if we don’t get exactly what we want, which would be a one-year suspension, we might get less than that, but I think we’d still win and make a point,” Commission Chair Carol Carter said.
“It needs to be shown that the city is serious about this,” Vose added.
“People have to know that we’re prosecuting these guys and that anyone else who does the same will be prosecuted,” Commissioner Jon Crane said.
Murphy said he has complete confidence that Vose, Olson and the sheriff’s deputies will continue to do a good job in enforcing the city’s noise ordinance.
“You can’t get them all, but we can’t let this turn into Key West,” Murphy said.
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