A decision on whether Anna Maria can limit vacation rentals to no more than eight occupants will wait for another day.
Following the April 1 court battle on whether the VRO provision is preempted by state law, 12th Circuit Judge Gilbert A. Smith Jr. reserved his ruling in Florida Gulf Coast Vacation Homes dba Anna Maria Vacations v. Anna Maria.
The judge said he’d try to issue a decision next week.
If he decides the state should be the only rule-maker of this type of vacation rental law, the Anna Maria occupancy rule would fall.
The city adopted the rule in November 2015 — including a five-year grandfather exception — as part of an ordinance requiring rental registrations, inspections, rental owner and agent duties, rental agreement provisions and postings.
Registration and applications for exceptions were due April 1.
At the hearing, attorneys disagreed on how to interpret the arguably preemptive state law, providing: “A local law, ordinance or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals.”
Specifically, they clashed on the meaning of “prohibit.”
Advocating a legal dictionary definition of “to forbid by law, to prevent, preclude or severely hinder,”
Attorney Randolph Smith of the Bradenton law firm Najmy Thompson argued on behalf of the plaintiff, an island vacation rental business.
Joseph and Kelly Varner of Tampa are the principals of the business, counting 69 Anna Maria city rentals in their stable of island rentals when the company filed suit in February.
The Najmy Thompson attorney adopted wording from a 2014 opinion from Attorney General Pam Bondi that outlaws local regulation “which seeks to prohibit vacation rentals.”
He argued, “Can I rent my house to more than eight people? The answer is no. That’s a prohibition.”
The city defended the ordinance as regulating vacation rentals, not prohibiting them.
“What our ordinance does not do, what this provision does not do, is prohibit any vacation rental in the city of Anna Maria,” said Wade Vose of the Vose Law Firm, on behalf of the city of Anna Maria.
The rental business and city attorneys also filed their positions in writing.
In the documents, city attorney Becky Vose argues, “There is not even one vacation rental in Anna Maria that cannot continue to operate as a vacation rental after the effective date of the VRO due to the limitation on occupancy,” she wrote.
The Voses also argued the occupancy limitations do not regulate frequency or duration of rentals, and therefore are not preempted.
Randolph Smith countered with the state’s provision, “severely hinders,” and the aim at prohibiting larger rental homes.
Wade Vose criticized Smith’s reliance on the secondary definitions in the legal dictionary.
The rental business attorney countered, criticizing the city attorneys for advocating a case using a definition from a 1990 legal dictionary.
Wade Vose pointed out the Bondi opinion relates to the zoning and location restriction, adding “it only helps to illustrate the city’s position” that the VRO does not prohibit vacation rentals.
State law had been silent on vacation rental regulation until 2011, when the Legislature enacted a law preempting all such local regulation.
In 2014, the state law allowed municipalities some regulations so long as the local law did not prohibit or regulate duration or frequency of vacation rentals.
Smith asked the litigants if they had run across any other challenge to the 2014 law.
The attorneys said they had not.
Attending the hearing were Mayor Dan Murphy, Commissioners Carol Carter and Doug Copeland and several Anna Maria residents.
After the hearing, the Voses were confident.
Wade Vose said, “We clearly made our arguments.”
On the other side of the aisle, Smith declined comment.