“It’s the buses and who they’re bringing in,” Chris Marone, St. Pete Beach City Commissioner, said at an Aug. 8 meeting. “And the Sheriff [Bob Gualtieri] said we cannot just pick these people up and drive them somewhere and drop them off. We’re not allowed to do that. We can make their lives miserable.”
“That’s all we can do is pester them. They used to not be here, these troublemakers. They’re here now,” Marone added.
“I have talked with the Sheriff and he’s actively petitioning PSTA to start charging,” Petrila said at the meeting. “We are looking at the cause of the problem, at least as he perceives it as a cause.”
In emails CL obtained through public records requests, PSTA’s Chief Executive Officer Brad Miller wrote on Aug. 11 that he proposed implementing a $.50 fare immediately for the Grand Central bus hub and all SunRunner stops westbound, “reducing the number of homeless individuals who are using it to access the beach to illegally sleep there at night and at other times causing other problems.”
According to that email, the change was going to be implemented today, Monday, Aug. 21. A subsequent email sent on Aug.16 changed course, saying that the PSTA board will vote on the issue Wednesday, Aug.t 23 at 9 a.m. at the PSTA board room.
A spokesperson for Sheriff Gualtieri said he will be attending the PSTA board meeting Wednesday morning and will have no further comment until then. St. Pete Beach’s communications team has not yet responded to requests for comment.
Not long after the second email was sent, two agenda items concerning St. Pete’s interlocal agreement with PSTA for the SunRunner contract were deleted from the city council agenda.
St. Pete’s SunRunner is supposed to be fare-free until at least November.
Last month, St. Pete Beach residents spoke out against the SunRunner at the PSTA’s monthly board meeting.
PSTA’s board is chaired by St. Pete council member Gina Driscoll, who pushed for St. Petersburg’s sidewalk ordinance that some homeless advocates see as an attempt to further criminalize homelessness.
“I’m afraid someone’s gonna throw a molotov cocktail into my window because we keep our windows open. And because we’re the ones that call the officers to report what we see,” Jill Kashner of St. Pete Beach said at that meeting.
Another resident, Brian Rutherford, said he was never offered to buy drugs on St. Pete Beach, until the SunRunner.
“We’re not against the SunRunner continuing,” Rutherford said. “But we are totally against it being free and the element it’s introducing.”
Jeffrey Lorick told CL that, “you cannot create a discriminatory policy toward a community of people.”
Lorick is the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies Southern Regional Representative at the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights.
Lorik said federal law protects certain communities, and organizations receiving federal funds are beholden to the law. He also noted that while the homeless aren’t considered a protected class in Florida, many in the homeless community are also disabled. It’s illegal to discriminate against disabled folks under the American Disabilities Act.
“That would be a violation of law and a protected class,” Lorik told CL.
St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch told Miller he has concerns about PSTA’s approach “both in terms of its potential effectiveness and equity.”
“I believe that a better understanding of the scope and impact of the problem is needed and shared that in my phone calls and voice messages with you and Sheriff Gualtieri,” Welch added. “Based on those conversations, I don’t doubt that a problem exists, and I do support the need to find effective solutions to identified issues. The St. Petersburg Police Department continues to monitor the situation to stay abreast of any concerns as they arise.”
Driving over the causeway into St. Pete Beach from Pasadena, Mermaids strip club sits at the gateway to Gulf Blvd. Across the street? Shhhh Don’t Tell Momma, what used to be a 24-hour sex shop. Filmmaker Harmony Korine of “Kids” fame shot a number of scenes in Spring Breakers along St. Pete Beach’s Corey Avenue. St. Pete Beach isn’t a quiet beach town, or it hasn’t been for a while.
And overall SunRunner has been hugely successful, and PSTA’s communications manager Stephanie Weaver told CL that it will soon reach one million rides in under a year of operation. The City of St. Petersburg has included expanded funding for SunRunner in next year’s budget.
Weaver said next week’s vote will be to implement fares for all stops or none at all.
“We’re caught between two entities and we’re trying to make everybody happy,” Weaver told CL, adding that “everybody is welcome on PSTA.”
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UPDATED: 08/21/23 1:40 p.m. Updated to show PSTA will soon reach one million SunRunner rides.
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This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2023.