Council plans on phase-out of wooden loungers

By Crystal Cole
Posted 1/13/17

Gulf Shores city officials took comments from residents and business owners on the latest part of the Leave Only Footprints program during their last city council work session, with several speakers …

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Council plans on phase-out of wooden loungers

Posted

Gulf Shores city officials took comments from residents and business owners on the latest part of the Leave Only Footprints program during their last city council work session, with several speakers asking for more leniency with regards to wooden lounger chairs.

Under the plan Gulf Shores is currently considering, the 981 wooden loungers currently in use around the city would be reduced by 14 percent every year for the next seven years.

“A company would have the ability to place those loungers throughout their accounts and, in essence, tell us at the beginning of the year which ones want to have what number of loungers,” said Grant Brown of recreation and cultural affairs.

If current vendors lost a contract, Brown said they could shift the number of wooden loungers placed within the city to other contract sites, as long as they stayed within the 14 percent total reduction number each year.

During public comments, Richard Booth, president of Albeachchairs.com, told the council he felt the policy was unfair, as it kept companies like his from competing within the city for contracts.

“My issue is that if I’m limited to the amount of loungers I have in my inventory right now, then I can’t compete to get another account because I can’t offer the same equipment,” Booth said. “The loungers are the desired piece of equipment on there, so if I was to try to get another account, I would have to say that I cannot give you the wooden loungers. Why would anybody contract with me over the next seven years?”

Mayor Robert Craft questioned whether Booth currently had any of the loungers on site in Gulf Shores, which Booth said he did not.

“If you had wooden loungers get on a site in Gulf Shores today, then you would be able to shift those wherever you wanted to,” Craft said. “But if you don’t then you don’t have any. It would be like us adding new wooden loungers to our inventory if we allowed you to come in and add something new that you don’t have here now.”

Booth said he felt like the policy bred unfairness in a competitive beach rental market.

“My competitors can say ‘I’ll give you wooden loungers for seven years, the exact number that you have because I can move it around,’” Booth said. “I have to say ‘No, I can’t because I don’t have them in my existing inventory,’ which is just wrong. It’s flat out wrong. It’s actually illegal to tell somebody they can’t compete.”

Craft said allowing Booth to bring new wooden loungers in would be a complete reversal of what the city was trying to do with this gradual phaseout.

“If you had wooden loungers in our city today, you would be able to move those around but you do not,” Craft said. “To let you come in and try to start with something new is totally against the spirit of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Councilman Gary Sinak said allowing Booth to bring in loungers would be unfair competition to existing vendors.

“They’re being restricted, too, by 14 percent a year,” Sinak said. “Granted, they have a set rate but it wouldn’t be fair to them to allow you to do that, to let you put loungers while we’re asking them to reduce.”

Sinak said even if a site cancelled an existing contract to go with Booth’s company, they would have to use a different style of lounger anyway.

“If they terminate a contract, they’re going to have to go with the new loungers also,” Sinak said. “That’s the way it has to go down, and it wouldn’t be right for you to supply wooden loungers and allow you to increase it. Nobody can start new with wooden loungers.”

Booth said he felt the policy was written to exclude new vendors.

“It’s only written for brand new businesses that never had loungers,” Booth said. “If the accounts that had loungers want to change up, they can still put loungers out there.”

Craft said he felt Booth was wanting the city to allow him to bring extra loungers in, which goes against the proposed policy.

“If you had them here, you could do move them around, but you don’t have them here,” Craft said. “And we’re not willing to let another vendor come in with wooden loungers in our city, period. You may have had a business license but you don’t have any wooden loungers on the beach. You didn’t fit in our inventory anywhere.”

Amber Jemison, owner of A Shore Thing, said she felt the new policy felt like the city was trying to micromanage things.

“My question is why can’t in seven years, we just say we’re going to reduce and just do it when we want to do it as business owners and adults,” Jemison said. “Why are we losing what we’re losing when we can all be happy staying where we are?” Craft said the policy was being enacted to satisfy demands from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Part of the Leave Only Footprints and the environmental concerns are that we want to get everything off the beach overnight,” Craft said. “If we do it, Fish and Wildlife has determined that this is a good program and we’ve basically convinced them to let us handle it so they don’t have to. I think that they’re satisfied this approach will work. Rather than saying get rid of all this next year, which is what we don’t want to do because we want to slowly phase out of it for the visiting public.”

Craft said the graduated phase-out approach over several years helps satisfy environmental concerns while balancing the wants of the visiting public and businesses community.

“We decided the right way to do this was to phase them out,” Craft said. “Let’s get our public used to it and let’s work our way through it over a reasonable time. That’s why we’re doing it over seven years. We’re doing it because it needs to be done. We can do it all at once or we can do it over time, and we’ve concluded the best way to do this is over the seven year period.”

Craft added that the policy doesn’t restrict the number of total chairs that could be allowed to be rented, as it only sets a cap on the wooden loungers currently in use across the city.

“She can continue to have chairs there, just not wooden loungers,” Craft said. “She can grow the inventory of chairs - they just can’t be wooden loungers. There’s no mention of restriction on the number of chairs you can site. It’s just on the wooden loungers that stay out overnight. “

Ike Williams of Ike’s Beach Service asked the city if they would consider reducing some of the license costs that beach rental companies have to apply for to contract with new sites.

“We’re wanting Gulf Shores to look at Orange Beach,” Williams said. “They charge us one master fee and then $5 per license fee after that. We don’t think that’s unreasonable. It’s just something else that would definitely help.”

City staff said they did not recommend such a reduction, but council members said they could study the matter.