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Sober minds to try to tame sandbar

Spirited boaters have become a nuisance. Officials considered closing access entirely but will consider alternatives.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published August 14, 2005

TIERRA VERDE - A rowdy Pinellas County bar less than a year old was about to be shut down until Thursday, when the Sheriff's Office asked the County Commission to seek alternative remedies.

The watering hole in question is a sandbar created off Shell Key by last year's series of hurricanes.

With a new place to party, boaters had plugged up passage through the key's nature preserve and created crowds so dense that sheriff's deputies couldn't reach the scene. The situation grew ugly over the Memorial Day weekend when a brawl injured some revelers. Authorities couldn't get in to help for almost an hour.

The County Commission considered closing access to the sandbar entirely by creating a "no entry zone" - a severe solution that upset more peaceful visitors of the area.

After hearing complaints, the Sheriff's Office suggested the county defer action while it considers alternative solutions, some of which may be presented at a public hearing on the issue Tuesday.

At Thursday's meeting of the Shell Key Preserve Advisory Group, representatives of the Sheriff's Office's Environmental Lands Unit showed pictures of the Memorial Day weekend gathering and shared details of their concern.

When 150 boats converged on the new 22-acre sandbar, law enforcement couldn't control a fight that broke out. Officers had to work their way past boat after boat to the center of the party to evacuate people with head injuries from thrown bottles.

"We can't walk on water," said Cpl. Kent Johnson of the environmental unit.

The Memorial Day incident was unique but cause for concern, officials say. The area has always been popular, but the sandbar helps form a bottleneck that concentrates crowds and increases risks. Despite motorboats plying the waters, people wade around the bar and are sometimes injured by propellers.

Officials say the Red Tide that hit the area this summer has kept crowds down, but the sandbar still attracts almost 100 boats each weekend.

"We don't want that Memorial Day incident to reoccur," said Will Davis, director of the county's environmental management division. He said families have complained they no longer want to visit Shell Key because the sandbar parties are too wild. After the parties, "there are things on that island that no human being should have to pick up."

The advisory committee brainstormed and suggested marking the channel so boaters blocking it could at least be ticketed. County staffers urged against that because it carries extra responsibilities, but also because the sandbar has already started shifting and could disappear in time, making the newly marked channel an unnecessary county liability.

Dave Reynard, who represents pleasure boaters on the advisory panel, suggested marking the channel area as a "no mooring" zone so deputies could keep a path clear without creating an official channel. While officials are not sure of the precise language of such signs and their legal weight, they said they will take that suggestion to the County Commission for its consideration.

Reynard, a former St. Pete Beach police officer who patrolled the area in the early 1970s, said such a shift would be enough incentive for boaters to make way and that would reduce the density of the parties that make law enforcement difficult. He said he has been visiting the area for decades and there were rarely problems until boaters on Memorial Day were brought close together.

"They were all in swinging distance," he said. He added that, with a little gentle management, "Of all the bars you can go to, this is probably the safest one."

[Last modified August 14, 2005, 00:53:19]