Russell Burgher
Florida is about to make it illegal to anchor your boat for longer than a few days without a permit and, basically, jail sailing tourists and Live aboard boaters after they already banned marinas from allowing liveaboard boaters to rent dock slips or mooring balls. So, what they are doing is abolishing the right to live for anyone that doesn’t own land, or rent from someone that does own land. When this new legislation passes, everyone is forced to be a slave and to comply with the beast system that makes the privilege of life only available to those that they approve, grant a permit to, and that surrender a percentage of ownership of their person in exchange a the dollar amount determined by the State necessary to secure this permission to exist.
They have already done this with every other possible way a person can live without fee. You can not park an RV and live in it without a camping spot, you can not sleep in your car, you can not camp anywhere unless you pay for a spot, you can not even sleep under a bridge or on a park bench without being arrested. The end to freedom, by any reasonable definition, is here. No longer will anyone have the right to exist freely in the State of Florida. You either surrender yourself to the system of financial slavery or you get locked up in a prison and the system pays your fees. I exchange for the relocation of your ability to interact with society or have any liberties whatsoever. This will be the end of the Natural Human Right of Life that was granted to us by our Creator which is the very first proclaimed declaration in the actual Declaration of Independence, the reason America existed in the first place.
It will be a misdemeanor offense for any booster to anchor their boat for longer than a few days without a permit- first offense
It will be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison- second offense
It will be a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison- third and subsequent offenses.
This is an absolutely outrageous legislative overstep and huge example of the ridiculously delusional idea that this place we now live in is in any way shape or form the same country that our founders and elders fought and died fighting to defend.
Nobody, including the State, owns the water and nobody has the authority to deem a person unallowed to live freely on this Earth.
Reference: The Cruiser’s Rights Network
There are a few people who do not yet see the danger in the upcoming bills. Most of them are not from Florida, or have never spent any time cruising in Florida.
So for everyone, let me lay this out plainly.
There are three bills coming at us: SB 164, HB 481 and SB 594, plus their companion bills. Just what will happen if they all pass?
HB 481 returns local rule making authority to communities over 1.5 million. That means Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Hillsborough.
In Miami Beach, that means that they can start enforcing their one week anchoring rule that is currently on the books. And they will do that.
In Miami, there is signage up at Marine Stadium stating no overnight anchoring. It’s currently illegal, but as of July 1, it won’t be. So that anchorage will be gone.
In a year, maybe two, they’ll reduce the 1.5 million to one million, or maybe 750,000, effectively allowing every community in Florida to write their own laws. That will mean 72 hours in Melbourne and many other cities.
Under 164, anywhere in Florida, you will be restricted to two weeks at anchor before you have to get a permit. Fail to get the permit and you face from one to fifteen years in jail as a maximum penalty.
SB 594 will eliminate large parts of Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Key West and other anchorages within 2500 feet of a seaport. No anchoring at all.
The three bills together will destroy the liveaboard boating community in Florida, and make anchoring in most places almost impossible.
NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I’M ANGRY ABOUT THIS?
If you plan on boating in Florida, you should be too.
The question is – what do we do about this? I’m open to your ideas, because I’m just about out of them. I don’t care how crazy it is – put it out there, it just might give someone an idea we can use.