6 10 May 1994 The Franklin County Chronicle Published twice monthly on the 10th and 26th Harold Woods This proposed draft which has not been noticed in the Florida Administrative Weekly, this is just a workshop to get your ideas. This preliminary draft is the product of discussion between the management of Hotels and Restaurants and the Fire Marshall's Office. It is not something that was sui sponte..."from" or "own impetus" from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants. It is, as she said earlier (referring to Ms. Cornman) a collaboration with the Fire Marshall's Office. I want to make that clear." Harold Woods, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, said: "Some people call me Murphy. And, I would like to pose a situation. If I were constructing an exit from my third floor residence in anticipation that I might rent it... and I slipped and fall and die..And, my widow, who we now call Mrs. Murphy, in her efforts to make ends meet, opens a boarding house, and she rents it out to transient folks who may want to visit St. George Island. And, it's my recollection...even the Federal Government excluded Mrs. Murphy's boardinghouse from the Public Accommodations laws. I'm just curious as to why Florida thinks that it has the right.. .make rulings on these issues when the Federal government has not..." Counsel for the trade association, Florida Vacation Home Manager Association, Andy Marcus, addressed the panel. He raised the so- called dichotomy between the State Fire Marshall's Office and the Division of Hotel and Restaurants. According to Marcus, there was a growing concern that both agencies were saying different things to the regulated industries. He claimed that his contacts with the State Fire Marshall's Office have not been aware of the Hotel and Restaurant Division's proposed rule. He agreed with Bruce Minnick and others that there was some question about the Hotel and Restaurant authority to write rules. Then, Marcus sought to redefine the issue. by bringing into the discussion about interior corridors and a definition of guest area. "Three stories is not the issue. Guest area is the issue.. .because the guest area is the hole which I believe it to be. That is, the area for which the guests have access to the entire accommodation, as opposed to a hotel where the guest area...wbere the guest access is limited." Woodyard: "Would it be your point that the person on the 6th floor would have access to the second floor and would be in the guest area? Andrew Marcus Buddy Dewar Andy Marcus: "My point is that if there is one entrance to the accommodation from entry level, the guest area... the guest has access to all areas of the home... If it is a 6-story home... then I would suggest to you that the 6-story home constitutes one guest area because it has one entrance and... the guest has access to all of the areas, as opposed to the more traditional hotel where you have a corridor and the guest area would be limited to that area where the person could go inside and lock the door.. .Or a better way to put it would be if you have an interior corridor, in a fire situation, where's that person's access? In the traditional hotel situation, you can't get into a locked room. That's a separate. guest area. No access. In a home, if there be such thing as an interior corridor, and I'm not sure that I understand...in a single family home context, what an interior corridor is... In that context, that person would have access to all the different rooms for a means of escape." Marcus concluded by saying that the State Fire Marshall's rules are "fair and comfortable", and there was a need to strike a balance between safety and business interests. "Fire safety is not important to anyone more that the members of the Association...but there was a danger of putting 'these folks out of business.'" Larry Hale, St. George Island, Suncoast Realty, spoke to the panel: "On St. George Island, the tide goes out and the tide comes back in. The beaches are never the same. Kinda like the administration of the Department of Business Regulation or the State Fire Marshall's Office. Every time a new tide comes in, the beaches are never the same. By this I mean, they interpret laws differently. The new regime comes in power, they interpret laws and they get awayfrom statute law and into administrative law and interpret things they way they want to interpret. My wife worked with the Dept. of Business Regulation for 17 years. She was Training Director when she left there. I'm going to read a statement from her. (Reading from her letter): '...At the time I was employed for the Division of Hotel and Restaurants, this issue was assigned to me to research and form an opinion. I contacted Mr. Walter Sterline, the NFPA who works in the technical department where the life safety code and other fire codes are written. I explained the issue to him and... he told me that the definition of hotels was redefined to include the issue of 30 days... to divert the increasing number of hotels that. .were constructing units in a collection of smaller buildings in order to circumvent the code. Itwas not intended to include individual homes owned by separate owners or by separate properties. He said that the individual family-type home whether rented transiently or not were not considered to pose a significant risk to safety to justify retrofitting those types of establishment to the same code or hotel-type establishment." '"When this came about, the State Fire Marshall's Office came to the same conclusion and issued a full interpretation of this matter. For whatever reason, this interpretation was later rescinded by the State Fire Marshall's Office." He ended with: "I have a hard time understanding why condos were exempt from this... the Condo lobby saw to it that they were not required to have fire sprinkler systems." Helen Spohrer of Resort Realty, St. George Island, was supportive of the State Fire Marshall's Office but "would the state agencies please get their act together. "Alice Collins later added, We all feel safety is the important thing. Let's do it right." Buddy Dewar, of the Florida Firefighters Association and Executive Director of the Florida Fire Sprinkler Association, made a comment on the fire safety situation on St. George Island. "I had the opportunity to drive around the island when I first got over here and I'll tell you I would be hard pressed as a fire Missouri Juvenile Charged in Auto Theft By Rene Topping Fast work on the part of sheriff deputies in two counties on 13 April resulted in the arrest of a sixteen year old from Farmington, Missouri, who was charged with "Grand Theft Auto and Fleeing and Attempting to Elude a Police Officer." The juvenile was finally arrested by deputies after fleeing fromApalachicolain a stolen 1990 black Jaguar. According to a police report, at 7:43p.m. on 13April, Ross Hewitt, anApalachicola resident, reported the car stolen to the Apalachicola police department Eye witnesses told police that they had seen a young, white male wearing a black hat and baggy, red shorts along with a white shirt which had print on it, had just gotten into the car and driven off. This information was relayed immediately to road deputies. Franklin County Deputy Elzie Shiver, who was in Eastpoint, attempted to make a stop. A road blo' kwas setup atC65 and US 98 but the juvenile ran through it. The Jaguar was finally pulled over at a point between Eastpoint and Carrabelle, and deputies learned Sat that point that the driver had a partner who was driving a white Lexus. Franklin County immediately relayed this information to the Wakulla Sheriffs office. After receiving the "be on the alert," (BOLO) from Franklin County, WakullaDeputyJarrettCrum took up a position near the Medart Junior Market where he stopped the Lexus and arrested the sixteen year oldjuvenile driver on a charge of Grand Theft Auto. The juvenile was taken to the Wakulla Sheriffs Department. After being informed by Missouri authorities that the youth was wanted on several other charges in Missouri, he was held for the Missouri law enforcement to be taken back to face charges. The Lexus was owned by a Richard C. Dickherber of St. Louis, Missouri. The juvenile, who was arrested in Franklin County, was a resident of Farmington, Missouri and has also been charged with Grand Theft Auto and also Attempting to Elude a Police Officer. He was turned over to the custody of Division of Youth Services in Tallahassee. ALLIGATOR POINT By Paul Jones Just a couple of days after our article on animal control was published, the Leon County Animal Control office issued a warning to the residents of Leon County of a serious rabies alert. Yet we still have a few animal owners on Alligator Point that continue to let their pets roam at-large, increasing their potential for being bitten by a rabid wild animal. Vision this...you let your pet out alone for just a couple of hours to exercise and relieve themselves. Days later you notice that your pet has an unseemly inability to respond to your commands, is very sluggish, and appears to be unwilling to eat his meal. As a concerned owner you begin to examine the pet, especially checking the mouth area and Tongue to determine if the pet had eaten something toxic. In the process 'you allow a trace of saliva to enter a small open cut or lesion you that you incurred earlier in the day cleaning fish or working in the garden. The next day you find your pet dead. You grieve the death of your pet and bury it, then you go on about your everyday business. Days later you experience some mild flu-like symptoms and it crosses your mind that you are too busy to come down with the flu at this time, so you hope it goes away. The next day you are becoming increasingly ill and seek your doctor's opinion. After a few days of testing during which you are developing grave neurological symptoms, the diagnosis is made RABIES!! Unfortunately, your pet has exposed you to the "dumb" form of rabies. !Since symptoms have already developed, medical science can't help you. There is no effective treatment for this fatal disease. Hadyou known that you were exposed to this deadly virus, the disease could have been prevented by post exposure vaccination. Kinda' scary, isn't it!! According to Dr. John Erickson, Medical Director for the Franklin 'County Health Department, there has been no recent accounts of 1 rabies cases in this county. He stresses that all pet owners should keep i pet vaccinations current and should maintain control of their animals. I A bumper sticker observed in Tallahassee was quite appropriate.... "Unleashed is Unloved". * * There is a petition being circulated on Alligator Point insisting that county ambulance service be retained in the Carrabelle-Lanark Village area instead of being required to relocate in Apalachicola for standby each time the other Apalachicola-based ambulance is called for assistance outside the county. According to Steve Fling, Alligator Point/St. Teresa Fire Chief and 1st Responder Coordinator, the petition is an invalid demand, that Franklin County, unfortunately, has only two equipped ambulances and they must be at all times positioned strategically close to the most populated areas of the county. He agrees that the extreme Eastern portion of the county needs immediate access to ambulance service at all times. However, that exorbitant equipment and manpower costs prevented the county from providing the service. tighter to manage a lire in one of these properties in a timely manner. I'm quite impressed with the equipment that St. George Island's fire department has. I commend the citizens of the community for their efforts to provide them with the needed equipment to at least stop the fire from spreading from one property to another, because that's basically the all option you have." He continued: "These were all the issues of concern that led to the passage of this law. The number one industry in the State of Florida is tourism. We cannot afford a major fire loss in this state. That was the basis, the reasoning behind the passage of that law...I was the co-author of that law back in 1983. I can assure you we did not discuss single-family homes on stilts when we wrote that law. I can assure you of that. I can also assure you that we addressed all properties and we feel, the reason we looked at transient occupancy is because people come from the North, they rent properties, be it a hotel room or a high rise or a single family home here on the beach. They deserve some level of safety. They deserve some level of standards. We would strongly support...all ofthe actions of the Division of Hotel and Restaurant with respect to licensure of transient occupancies. There are requirements that are needed for the safety and protection and liability of the property owner..." "We're talking (about) a fire flow...three hundred gallons a minute. A typical 2-story on stilts, which we would call a three-story building, we talking probably 1500 to 2000 gallons a minute to contain that fire in that one building. We got 300 gallons a minute coming out of the ground. There's no way. It can't be done...What is needed is a fire sprinkler system...That's the solution. Whether it's going to be economically feasible or politically popular within the community is an issue you all are going to have to decide." Dewar also provided some background on the fire safety rules going back to the early 1980s: "Let me give you a little bit of history on why 509.215 came into place...I was representing the fire service at the time. MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Major fire loss. There was a concern within the fire service community not to have a situation where 85 people died in a fire...in the state of Florida. The next year after that fire.. .we would have a law in Florida that would have fire sprinkler requirements. That law did not pass. It passed only when we started looking at the economic Impact of that fire loss. There were mass cancellations of conventions in Las Vegas. A number of properties were troubled financially. That was followed by the DuPont Plaza Hotel fire in Puerto Rico. A major loss of life. Major cancellations. So, the economic issue was really...the liability issue..." Then, Andy Marcus offered another orientation by proposing the following: "It seems to me that this is not a Hotels and Restaurant issue, but this is a local government issue. This is a construction issue. What's happening now, is a lot of zoning by fire safety..." Profile Dr. George Lansing Sands, Jr. Dr. George Lansing Sands, Jr. was born on 27 June 1922 in Colburn, West Virginia. As a young boy growing up in this small coal- mining town. George's dream was to simply become a doctor. He got his inspiration from the country doctor who practiced there in Colburn, making house-calls to tend the ill whenever anyone needed him. Dr. Sands graduated from Beaver High School in Bluefield, West Virginia in 1940. He was active in sports and played basketball and football. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II as a tail gunner from 1942 until 1946. For his service, he received the Medal of Honor. After the war, he went to medical school in Kirksville, Missouri, where he graduated and later began his medical practice in Gary, Indiana. Dr. Sands came to Carrabelle for a short period of time in the early 1950's. He left Carrabelle in 1957 and started a practice in Ft. Lauderdale. After only a short period of time in Ft. Lauderdale, Dr. Sands began receiving mail from the people in Carrabelle asking that he please return and renew his practice. He truly missed Carrabelle and the people who lived there, so he gladly returned in 1959 Hooked on Books Owners: Pete & Rachel Roman U..'.. U 5 U U * 5 U a * U S & U U U U a U U U U U U U * Oyster 8 EU...' Aibson Inn Annex 54 Market Street ilachicola, FL 32320 653-2420 mU. EUU m m m m nm m En E m m n m E m m u U m The Island Gathering Place " fU pU ". .. .U S T 0 E O R 0 E I S L A N 0 F L 0 R I 0 A Where Strangers Become Friends Live Entertainment Nightly, Wednesday through Saturday Fine Food and Spirits, Seven Days a Week Big . 3ar Your Hosts. The Cates Family 904/927-9810 Screen TV.. a 0m mE U mmU E U m U U amE mmE 0a a U mm E m ma u's Published twice monthly on the 10th and 26th and remained there until his death. Just as the kindly doctor of his earlyyears in that small coal mining town in West Virginia, he became the country doctor of Carrabelle, making his calls, delivering "lots of babies and tending to those who needed him. He loved sports and attended most all of the football, baseball and basketball games. Every year, he gave all the team members their physical exams free of charge to show his support. In 1976, Mayor N.O. Cook (deceased) declared 3 July as George L. Sands, Jr. Appreciation Day. Dr. Sands' favorite hobbies were sporting events and reading, but one thing he loved to do when he wasn't tending to patients was to go out and do some quiet fishing in Carrabelle. *Editor's Note: Dr. Sands died in October, 1988, and on 7 February 1994, the ball field was officially renamed the Dr. George L. Sands Ball Field by the Carrabelle City Commission. Ml q~l:" I - - J vQN~L