- November 16, 2024
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Flagler Beach will rent out its pier for private parties and events — and close it to the public — up to six times per year.
Under the new guidelines, the whole pier could be rented out for $115 an hour for a minimum of three hours and a maximum of 18 hours, or the T-section on the end, popular with pier fishermen, could be rented out for $75 per hour for a minimum of one hour and a maximum of three hours. The pier would then be closed to the rest of the public.
"It’s not to make money. I mean, in my mind," Flagler Beach Mayor Linda Provencher said at a Sept. 10 meeting. "We’ve had people approach us to do activities on our pier, and we have nothing in place to do that. We have the Rotary wanting to do the yoga, we’ve had people ask about weddings or parties or what have you. We had nothing in place. So this is to put something in place. So if somebody comes, ‘OK, well this is what is costs, this is what it is,” then if they’re interested, fine, if they’re not, fine. … It’s not like we’re kicking the fishermen and people off of the pier every other day. Six times, out of the year."
City Clerk Penny Overstreet reminded Provencher that the idea of renting out the pier was first raised at a planning meeting about generating revenue. “You’re not going to get rich, Linda, but it was brought up at our strategic planning, is where this came from, and that was to generate revenue to relieve the burden from the general fund,” she said.
If the entire pier was rented out at its $115-per-hour rate for the maximum number of hours permitted per event — 18 — for the maximum six times permitted each year, it would bring in $12,420.
Commissioner Marshall Shupe suggested the city consider raising its entrance fees for the pier.
"I would remind everybody that maybe it's something we need to look at again — and I know the positives and the negatives of it — but we have not raised these prices for admission since 2007," he said. None of the other commissioners voiced an interest in doing so at the meeting.
