http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/20150812/NEWS/150819759
by TOM McLAUGHLIN
Walton County commissioners are considering adopting a Bay County-like ordinance that would outlaw drinking on the beach for the months of March and April.If Tuesday’s first public discussion of the proposal serves as any indication, they are going to get a lot of resistance from beachfront property owners.“The fact that for two months out of the year I can’t take a glass of wine out to watch the sunset on the beach is ludicrous,” resident Zuma Banks told commissioners at their Tuesday meeting.Bay County passed an ordinance March 31 that banned drinking on the beaches and in parking lots of unincorporated areas of Panama City Beach through April 18.The action was in response to several serious crimes being committed during spring break, a time when thousands of high school- and college-age kids converge on the Northwest Florida coast.With spring breaker issues of its own already, and in anticipation of more young people choosing to visit Walton County over the newly restrictive Panama City Beach, county officials decided to draw up an ordinance of their own.A public hearing on the proposed ordinance will be held Sept. 8 at 3 p.m. at the county’s South Walton annex.Not only several residents, but also a couple of commissioners didn’t like the idea of the county telling private property owners they couldn’t have a cocktail in their own back yard.“If I own a house, I ought to be able to drink a beer in my own yard, even though I don’t like beer,” said Commissioner Sara Comander.For the last two years, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office has been strictly enforcing underage drinking laws during spring break, and hundreds of young people have been jailed as a result.Commissioner Bill Chapman requested that County Attorney Mark Davis consult with the Sheriff’s Office to see if there were better ways to enforce a beach drinking ordinance than banning all alcohol consumption on beaches, public or private.“That private property owner, him or her, being prohibited from drinking a beer on their beach, I have a grief with this,” Chapman said.Banks suggested that if she was to be restricted from drinking on the beach for two months, everybody else in Walton County ought to be treated the same.If every property owner in the county was restricted from drinking outside for two months, she said, “I’ll drink inside.”An alternate ordinance that would address the private property concerns expressed Tuesday will be presented at the public hearing, county officials said.
