ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Backstreet Boys singer Brian Littrell says an area Florida sheriff’s workplace isn’t doing sufficient to guard his multimillion-dollar beachfront property from trespassers and is asking a choose for an order commanding deputies to take action.
The petition filed final month by Littrell’s firm in a Florida Panhandle county touches on a perennial tug-of-war between usually-wealthy oceanfront property house owners and beach-loving members of the general public, particularly in Florida, which has 825 miles of sandy seashores.
Below Florida regulation, any sand on a seashore under the excessive tide water mark is public. Many householders personal the sand all the way down to the common high-water line, although some counties over the a long time have handed native ordinances that permit the general public use in any other case non-public seashores for sunbathing, fishing and strolling if individuals have traditionally had entry for these functions.
Property data present that Littrell’s firm bought the property in Santa Rosa Seaside in Walton County in 2023 for $3.8 million.
A spokeswoman for the Walton County Sheriff’s Workplace stated Wednesday that the workplace doesn’t touch upon pending litigation.
“The Walton County Sheriff’s Workplace prides itself on dealing with each scenario, name for service, or interplay with professionalism utilizing a customer support strategy,” public info officer Lindsey Darby stated in an e-mail. “This has all the time been our philosophy and can stay so shifting ahead.”
Within the petition, Littrell’s firm stated that chairs, umbrellas and small tables had been put out on the seashore, in addition to “No Trespassing” indicators, to mark it as non-public property. However that effort had been in useless “as quite a few trespassers have got down to antagonize, bully, and harass the Littrell household by usually, each day, trespassing,” in keeping with the petition.
The sheriff’s workplace has refused requests to take away trespassers or cost them, and the household has needed to rent non-public safety, the petition stated.
Walton County, which has grow to be dwelling to a number of well-known property house owners in addition to Littrell over the previous twenty years, has been on the middle of a latest struggle between non-public property house owners and the general public over entry to seashores.
A 2018 Florida regulation that stemmed from a Walton County ordinance blocked any native authorities from passing ordinances coping with public seashore entry till affected owners had been notified, a public listening to was held and a court docket had decided whether or not a personal seashore was traditionally open to the general public.
Florida lawmakers this 12 months accepted laws that restored management again to native authorities, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into regulation final month in Santa Rosa Seaside, the seashore city the place Littrell’s home is positioned.
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