Circle and city officials clash over code issues

St. Armands Circle Business Improvement District (BID) members are frustrated with a lack of answers from city of Sarasota officials about issues affecting the popular shopping destination.

At the core of the BID’s perceived lack of answers is a woman’s right to solicit donations around the Circle for Haitian children.

In January, BID board members conveyed they have a problem with the woman’s daily solicitation efforts because merchants who pay $1,500 a month or more to lease Circle space receive a fine from the city if they make a homemade sign or solicit business directly outside their shops.

But city code officials and police officers say her solicitation efforts aren’t violating city code because she isn’t selling anything.

Her presence on the Circle, though, is growing.

St. Armands Circle Executive Director Diana Corrigan said she sets up a card table, coolers, an umbrella and now, a sandwich board, to solicit donations.

Although the sandwich board sign is illegal and police officers will give her a code violation when they see it, Corrigan and others take issue with her growing presence, which sometimes encroaches on the public sidewalk.

“We gave her an inch and she’s taken a football field,” Corrigan said.

Circle merchants are also advised to sign up for the city’s trespass program if they are closed on the weekends and don’t want the woman setting up on their private property when they are closed. Then officers can cite her for trespassing without the property owner’s presence.

For the third meeting in a row, City Manager Tom Barwin and City Attorney Robert Fournier didn’t attend a meeting at the BID’s requested invitation to discuss the issue, along with myriad other concerns. The BID perceives a lack of clarity and code compliance with loud amplified music after 10 p.m. It also said restaurant owners are sneaking out excess outdoor seating, and city staff isn’t responding in a timely manner because it has fewer code officers than the department had a few years ago.

“This problem and other problems are diminishing the quality of the image of St. Armands,” said BID Vice Chairman Marty Rappaport.

Corrigan said the “target is not the woman soliciting donations.”

“We have no clarification and everything is so fuzzy and we’re not getting any straight answers,” Corrigan said. “We have a bunch of dominoes and we need to get our arms around them.”

City staff and police officials agreed to review the city’s codes and ordinances and report back to the BID in May. If the issues aren’t resolved soon, BID officials intend on taking their matters to the Sarasota City Commission.

“The mistake being made here is we’re comparing St. Armands to other areas of town when it’s a unique district and the only one of its type,” Rappaport said. “It’s a different animal with different issues. What we really should be doing is looking at requirements to change the code so requirements for the district serve the district and protect merchants, landowners, residents, clientele and the future of the Circle.”

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected]