Sarasota News Leader

08/01/2014

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"I feel that there have been continuing viola- tions," Holderby responded. "I feel that Bob's knows that they're violating the outdoor din- ing ordinance … and until we get in front of a magistrate and get a Finding of Fact, it's not going to stop." PROCEDURAL CONCERNS Wittmer told Aker that once he received a Notice of Violation, "you have time to correct it, and it's assumed that you will continue to stay in compliance. The idea of a new notice every time isn't the case." Aker persisted in maintaining that the county should notify Bob's Boathouse of any inci- dent in which the restaurant had been found in violation of the outdoor dining ordinance. "It would be totally unfair to run this out on their theory that they could go night by night by night by night and then come in and say —" Wittmer interrupted him. "You were notified of a violation and given time to [correct it]. If you choose to re-violate that same ordinance, it is not [county staff's] obligation to re-notify you every time you choose to re-violate." Wittmer added, "It would be an incredible burden on the county to go back and re-in- spect and re-notify every time somebody decided not to follow the rules after they were given notice." Aker told her, "With all due respect, your honor, I disagree with your interpretation of that." BACK TO THE TIMELINE Bossard, the assistant county attorney, explained, "This is your classic recurrence [of a violation]. … Procedurally, there's no defi- ciency here in terms of when notice was required and to whom notice was supposed to be given." Aker countered that the presumption on the part of county staff of continuing violations after early December "is a real stretch." In response to a question from Wittmer, Holderby clarified that the Nov. 20, 2013, Notice of Violation gave the business until Dec. 1, 2013 to correct the situation. "What happened after that?" she asked. "Why wasn't this brought to hearing [earlier]?" Holderby explained that a follow-up inspec- tion on Dec. 16 found the business was still in violation, but further inspections found no problems. Then in April, he said, Code Enforcement staff began receiving emails indicating violations were occurring once more, so he re-inspected the restaurant on April 23. "I guess what I'm struggling with is … between November and April," Wittmer told him. "There was basically an assumption that they were in compliance," Holderby replied. "This is crazy," Wittmer said. "Based upon the testimony I've heard, I'm going to dismiss this and if you choose to re-file, then go ahead and re-file, and we'll take up appropriate notice." She added to Holderby, "You can't say [the restaurant is] in compliance and yet not fol- low the appropriate paperwork and then say [it is] not in compliance over six months." " U n d e r s t a n d , y o u r h o n o r, " H o l d e r b y replied. % Sarasota News Leader August 1, 2014 Page 70

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