A Pinellas town is clarifying its beach rules. Some residents are confused.

Temperatures were climbing into the high 80s on Mother’s Day when Elena Garcia walked to the shore from her beachfront condo in Redington Beach with her son, husband and mother-in-law.

She brought beach chairs, towels and a shade canopy.

Garcia doesn’t use the latter item often, but she set up the canopy to keep her husband’s 83-year-old mother out of the blazing sun.

About 30 minutes after they plopped on the sand, she looked up from her lunch to see a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputy pulling a cruiser into sight. He approached the family and told Garcia they were breaking a beach rule that prohibits tents of any kind.

She had never heard of the rule, but decided against arguing with the deputy.

He asked Garcia to take it down. She did.

When deputies approached another family and told them to pack up the small tent made for shading their infant child, it sparked Garcia’s outrage. She called town officials and the sheriff’s office looking for answers.

The ones she got made no sense, she said.

An ordinance banning tents on private beaches in Redington Beach was passed in 2018, but recent enforcement has taken Garcia and other residents by surprise. Town leaders say they are revising the rule to make it easier for law enforcement to uphold.

But Garcia, who set up the canopy on a beachfront owned by her condo, believes the current ordinance allows her to use a tent because she lives there. She says law enforcement was out of line to tell her not to use her tent, since the ordinance has yet to be revised.

“That’s not what the rule says,” she remembered telling a Pinellas deputy later over the phone. “You can’t enforce a rule that’s not current.”

What exactly does the tent rule say?

Redington Beach town council members approved a change to the tent rule in a 4-1 vote at a May 1 meeting. Florida law requires that newly passed local government ordinances are read to the public on two separate days before they are enacted. The new tent ordinance has not yet received a final reading.

The original ordinance prohibits tent use “for members of the public on the dry sand areas of the beach that are owned by private entities.” The new language bans tents across all public and private beaches except for two owned by the town that are used as event spaces.

Redington Beach Mayor David Will said the revision is intended to make the language simpler after law enforcement officials struggled to distinguish private beach areas from public ones.

Public beaches, often referred to as “wet sand” beaches, begin below the mean high water line of the ocean, according to Florida law. It means that any wet sand below the line made by waves crashing against the shore is public use. On dry sand above that demarcation, private beachfront begins.

“But that line moves, and nobody knows exactly where it is,” Will said.

The mayor said even though the language in the ordinance is changing, it doesn’t mean the rule’s interpretation or intent has changed.

But in its current state, the ordinance is unclear about to whom it applies, according to law experts. One reading could mean tents are banned for nonresidents, but another just as easily suggests property owners are also prohibited from using tents.

Paul Boudreaux, a lawyer and professor of land-use law at Stetson University, said the way the rule is currently written could be confusing or easily misconstrued.

“One could argue, if one was an owner of the property — such as a homeowner or a condo owner — they own, arguably, the dry sand area,” he said. “And that maybe they’re not covered by this because they’re not a member of the public.”

Garcia said this line of reasoning made her question whether Redington Beach can even lawfully uphold such an ordinance.

“There’s all kinds of lack of clarity,” she said.

Steve Henderson, a Vero Beach lawyer who handles property law cases, said there’s “no question” the town is within its rights to limit what is allowed on public beaches, but agreed the original ordinance language is murky.

He’s also not sold on the revised language or the town’s argument that it can regulate private beachfront property in this way.

“Do they have the right to regulate privately owned dry sand areas like that?” he said. “I don’t think they have a right to do that through the adoption of ordinances that are intended to apply to public beaches.”

Henderson pointed to other beach rules elsewhere, including bans on open containers, shark fishing and plastic straws, as legally sound ordinances. He said local governments can pass these rules as long as they are justifiable or related to public health and welfare.

“I have to question whether this was reasonable,” he said of the tent ban.

Will said the ordinance was created to combat loud parties that were breaking out on the beach and disrupting the mostly residential town. The rule resembles a similar ban on umbrellas that received community backlash in Belleair Shore in 2022. Officials there also said out-of-control parties spurred the ordinance passing.

Henderson says he doesn’t buy it.

“They prohibit tents and they expect fewer teenagers on the beach?” he asked rhetorically.

Garcia, who has lived in Redington Beach for eight years, also pushed back against the town government’s reasoning.

“I never see anything get out of control there,” she said. “It’s like we’re creating a rule for an issue that doesn’t really exist.”

Neighbors push for their rights to tents

Garcia took to social media, posting her encounter with the sheriff’s office on Facebook groups for local beach residents. She also started an online petition aimed to “guarantee the right to erect tents” on Redington Beach. It has garnered nearly 100 signatures so far.

Some shared in Garcia’s confusion. Others lamented the changes they’ve seen in their sleepy beach town as more vacation rentals replace full-time residents. They see the rule as a symptom of neighbors not getting along.

“Our little beach town used to be so nice and carefree,” Jakki Messina Sukeena, a Redington Beach resident of 25 years, wrote in a Facebook comment. “All these new homeowners need to chill!”

About the time the tent ban was passed in 2018, Garcia said she began noticing no trespassing signs crop up on the beach in front of homes. She said it felt like a shift from a friendly place toward one where neighbors argued over property lines.

Garcia also took issue with enforcement of a rule she says shouldn’t exist in the first place.

“The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have much more to do than patrol the beaches for tent violations? That seems a little extraordinary,” Garcia said. “Shouldn’t they be out fighting crime?”

The sheriff’s office says deputies have given 11 warnings for beach tent violations since January. No citations, which carry a $125 fine, have been issued.

“Our typical enforcement is education,” Jamie Miller, a spokesperson for the agency, said in an email.

Will said the ordinance is typically enforced when town code enforcement sees a tent while patrolling the beaches or after receiving a complaint from a resident. He added that enforcement hasn’t changed despite some residents not knowing about the rule.

“This has been happening since 2018. And maybe now it seems to be happening a little more,” he sad. “But we’re busier out there.”

Once the new ordinance passes, the town plans to post signs reminding beachgoers of the tent ban. Currently, there are no signs publicizing the rule anywhere on Redington Beach, according to Will.

Will hopes the new ordinance language will clear up confusion.

“If this doesn’t get us there, then we can revise it through our citizen input to get us to that goal,” he said.

The measure is up for a second and final reading by the town council June 5. If passed, the ordinance will go into effect immediately.