Posted signs prohibit swimming at Bean Point in Anna Maria. However, an ordinance to legalize the prohibition was sunk.
Mayor Mark Short wrote in a Sept. 16 email to The Islander that he had vetoed an emergency ordinance codifying the no-swim zone Sept 15.
City commissioners unanimously voted Sept. 11 to approve a 60-day emergency ordinance that prohibited people — other than the owners and guests at homes with riparian rights in the area — from swimming in the waters off Bean Point.
Two drownings in those waters in August spurred the city to post “No Swimming” signs along the shoreline over the first week of September, then consider the emergency ordinance.
Following a handful of comments from residents who opposed the prohibition, commissioners added a residential exemption to the code.
However, that exemption may have led to the emergency ordinance’s veto.
“The ordinance as approved provided for inconsistent enforcement and would be impractical to enforce …,” Short wrote in his Sept. 16 email.
Short said Sept. 19 that commissioners were set to discuss the ordinance at a meeting at 5:01 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, at city hall, 10005 Gulf Drive.