Gulf Shores council members voted unanimously to suspend the rules and pass an ordinance that would begin a seven-year phase-out of wooden beach loungers from the city’s beaches.

Grant Brown, with the city’s recreation and cultural affairs department, told the council that the updated ordinance brought before them had been modified after some questions and input from the business community.

“We had the opportunity to review a couple of questions that came before the council from the community with our city attorney,” Brown said. “From those discussions, we added a sunset provision.”

The sunset provision states there are 46 licensed sites operated by five duly-licensed companies, which currently hold a total of 981 wooden loungers. The total number of loungers in use will have to be reduced by 14 percent every year until they are phased out completely.

Brown said one of the revisions made included a grandfather clause for some of the vendors.

“The grandfathering of the sites, along with each of the vendors in the sunset provision, allows for the opportunity that if a company goes completely out of business and their lounger inventory and the sites that they were licensed for in 2016 are changed in its entirety to a different company that all of the younger locations licensed by that vendor and the remainder of that lounger inventory could transfer in their entirety over to a new business,” Brown said.

Grant said there was also some clarification added into how the city would approve the number of storage boxes for the loungers requested by the vendor.

“We’ll sit with the vendor and discuss with them the number of storage containers that they feel are necessary, particularly during this phase-out program,” Brown said. “There may be a need for additional boxes with potentially managing two different types of chairs and with the cushions that are left on the chairs overnight. So that worry was updated in the ordinance.”

Brown added there was a clause that dealt with current vendors being bought out by other companies.

“If Business A was managing a particular condominium’s beach lounger program and they lose that account to Business B, the ability of those accounts to still participate in this lounger phase-out program over this period of seven years can be done,” Brown said.

Brown stressed that the transfers can occur only if the loungers still remain under the appropriate number of loungers for that year mandated by the phase-out.

“They can make transfers as long as the total number of loungers do not exceed the number set for that particular year,” Brown said.

Council members asked whether new companies coming in would be able to use the wooden loungers if they were able to get an account.

Brown said any new company would have to use the newer lounger model and not the wooden ones, unless they purchased an existing company currently licensed to use the wooden loungers.

“The only way a new company could come into our market would be if they bought out one of the existing companies in its entirety, that available inventory, with this sunset provision, would transfer over into this new entity,” Brown said.

Councilman Gary Sinak questioned Brown about how many storage boxes would be allowed at each site, asking if it was just an unlimited number.

“We’ll work with the vendor to make sure it’s a manageable number at each site,” Brown said. “We’ll also be participating in the location of those storage boxes. One of the things Fish and Wildlife was adamant about was having a lot of separation so you wouldn’t have a wall effect.”

Mayor Robert Craft asked whether any site fee reduction had been included in the updated ordinance after some business owners raised concerns during the last meeting, but city staff told him no changes like those were included.

Craft said he was glad to see the ordinance move through without issue.

“We look forward to making this continue to be an important part of our community,” Craft said.