Public beach accesses and vendors

[Beach Buggys]

I've been digging through all the videos of meetings in the county website, looking for info on a topic I was just told about. I've been out of the country for the last couple months and was informed that someone proposed to privatize public beach accesses by selling vending rights to the highest bidder. I am going on hearsay, can anyone bring me up to speed on this development.

 

[John G]

Yes, that was tossed around.

Nothing has come out of it.

 

[Matt J]

I think the proposal was to bid exclusivity rights to vend on those areas. Instead of 20 companies you would have one. It would not privatize the beach.

 

[miznotebook]

That was my understanding also, not privatizing but bidding out/doing RFPs for chair and umbrella vending, at least for the regional beach accesses. It sounded like there would still be different companies vending but probably just one for each access. All this would have to be workshopped, written up into an ordinances/ordinances, and public hearings held. It would not be likely that it would happen this year, if it does get approved. The discussion was at the beach vending workshop preceding the Jan 12 Walton County Board of County Commissioners meeting. Here is a link to the video, and the written materials are also in the link that comes up on the left side: Walton County Board of County Commissioners - Meeting of Board of County Commissioners on 1/12/2016 at 4:00 PM

 

[John G]

So, if I have a Popsicle stand and want to go to a county park, can I just set up shop and sell?

I'd like to open my own small business, so please let me know the way to do it.

 

[Matt J]

Sounds like a business plan. Want to buy a business license on the cheap? Cash only.

 

[steel1man]

They actually said this season 2016 could be done for public access only beaches. Implied pretty much done deal as I hear it in January meeting. Another meeting next week around February 3ish.

 

[FoX]

Why do we want vendors on our beaches at all?

 

[miznotebook]

There is a meeting for beach vendors on Feb. 3, 3 p.m. at the South Walton Annex (not a county commission meeting). I don't think it is a done deal on bids for vending for the regional beach accesses. The only time the commissioners discussed it was at a workshop, and they can't or don't vote on anything at those. They talked about bringing the issue up and possibly moving forward with it at their Feb. 9 regular meeting, but it remains to be seen whether it will be on that agenda. There was some opinion that it would be feasible to do the bids for regional beach accesses only in 2016, but the District 5 commissioner was of the opinion that the commission was already behind the 8 ball for the 2016 season. There was quite a bit of discussion about working on the new beach management plans this year with an eye to implementing them in 2017.

 

[Teresa]

Beach vendors are out of control on our beaches. It happened almost overnight. I hope our county will protect the beaches and our experience when visiting the beach soon. There must be a solution.