Governor Ron DeSantis (00:00):
Be with you. We're excited to be back in Sarasota. We did not get Chamber of Commerce weather today, but that's okay. You guys have had a lot of good days, certainly this spring, and I know it was a busy tourist season. Well, we've got a great cast with us today. We have Senators Boyd and Gruters. We have representatives Peggy, Gossett, Sideman, as well as Robinson, Connerly and Nicks and Fiona McFarland, if she's not here yet, I think she's on her way. I know she had an appointment, so I want to thank her. We also have our Sheriff of Sarasota County, Kurt Hoffman with us. And then we have the general manager here from Weston Sarasota, Gil Reyes, and he's going to be able to say a few things for us.
(00:51)
Now, I'm going to be signing a couple pieces of legislation and I do want to acknowledge Senators Rodriguez and Leak who were sponsors of SB322 and SB606 respectively. They couldn't be here today, but they had a big role to play in bringing this to the finish line. I think a lot of people remember recently, I think it was about a year ago, year and a half ago, you started to see a lot of this issue of squatting that was happening, not really in Florida to the extent it was happening in California. I mean the usual suspects you would see. And squatting, there's actually a basis for it in American history because it's like when people were settling the west, when people would go on property, if no one else was using it, then you could potentially develop property rights over a time period. And that was just viewed as more efficient than if you had to track down.
(01:51)
There's a lot of reasons for that. Bottom line is that didn't necessarily upend the way people do business normally, but to apply that in a residential context where you move into some house because somebody's a seasonal resident, you just start living there and somehow you have rights all of a sudden when you never were able to do... You literally had people just breaking into homes and just taking over homes, and then to get them out was a huge deal. And then property owners would go back in New York and all this stuff. They're like, I can't get my property back for nine months or a year or whatever and all this other stuff. And it was a cottage industry. People were being told that you can do this, and it was a way to basically get "free lodging." And so we said that is not going to fly in the state of Florida.
(02:40)
We are not going to let people's private residences, even if it's a vacation home, become endeared by people who aren't paying to be there, don't have a right to be there, and we're not going to let the law create roadblocks for property owners just to be able to exercise their rights. We signed the strongest anti- squatting legislation in the country last year, and that was really, really good. I know some other states have followed suit. And as good as that was, that was really focusing on residential squatting. And that's probably where you see a good chunk of it for sure. And in Florida, my thing is people know not to try this stuff here as easily. They know that there's much more risk for them to get held accountable than in some of these other places. I mean, you literally had, I think it was a year ago, it even got on CNN.
(03:39)
There were illegal alien death rings basically. And what they would do, they would steal in New York and then they'd take the profits of what they would sell or whatever, and then they'd come to Florida and blow the money down here vacationing, and then they go back to New York and do the same thing. And someone says, well, why don't you just stay in Florida and steal there? They said, "Because they put you in jail in Florida when you do that." I think people get not the most target-rich environment. There's a huge downside for you if you try to do it, but I think with what we did with the residential squatting, it's been really, really effective. Basically, it just gives tools. I mean obviously if you have a right to be there, you're going to have due process to be able to show that you have a right to be there.
(04:30)
But I mean, this stuff does not require an OJ Simpson trial, right? I mean literally you're either there or you're not legally, and it should be very easy to establish. And so what you don't want is to create all this cumbersome bureaucracy so that incentivizes people to do this knowing they don't have a right to do it, but also knowing that they can buy themselves six months, nine months, a year just by all the time this goes. On the residential, we really made it so that our local law enforcement has the tools they need to be able to evict people out of private property who don't have a right to be there. And certainly in a place like Sarasota, we have seasonal residents. There's people that are gone now and they won't come back until October. Well, what would you think? You show up in October and you see some family just living in your house or something that they had no right to be there.
(05:23)
I think you would want to just call the sheriff and say, "Hey, I've got somebody squatting in my house. Can you take care of it?" They take care of it, and then you get to use the property. If we had California laws, you'd basically be SOL for nine months. You would have no easy recourse there. I'm really glad that we were able to do that. Now, after that happened, people said, "Well, you also have issues of squatting on commercial property as well." And so one of the bills I'm signing today, Senate Bill 322, that creates similar expedited procedures for unauthorized individuals occupying commercial spaces. This provides those property owners with a streamlined process to regain possession of the property that is rightfully theirs. Under current law, the remedies to remove unauthorized applicants or occupants of a commercial property can unfortunately be lengthy and time-consuming, which then incentivizes people to take advantage of the situation.
(06:24)
And we're not going to allow that to happen. We're not going to create those perverse incentives. This offers commercial property owners a more efficient means to reclaim possession of their properties from unauthorized occupants. And there's a lot of things in there that I think are going to be very positive. And I know even this is really all over the state where some of this stuff needs to be used, unfortunately. You're going to be able to get that done, and I'm really, really excited to be able to sign that. I'm also signing SB606, which strengthens the rights of hotel and motel owners when dealing with guests who are uncooperative or not paying their bills. The bill clarifies language and current law that a guest stay at a hotel, motel, vacation, rental bed and breakfast or timeshare is considered transient unless a written agreement states it is the guest's sole residence.
(07:18)
Now, it does happen sometimes where someone will just have a residence at a hotel or a motel, it's not a lot, but it can happen depending on where they are, what station in life they are. But that's definitely the exception, not the rule. And unless that's written down, we're assuming that this is for transient purposes. And I think what we've seen is hotel guests just not pay and squat in the hotel. This forces the owner of the hotel to go through basically a traditional eviction process. If you stop paying your rent in some apartment or didn't fulfill the obligations of your lease. Staying at a hotel, you're there, you're either paying or you're not. And if you're not, it shouldn't devolve into some major landlord tenant dispute. The person should just be escorted off the property and leave. I think this is going to be something that's going to be really good for our economy.
(08:15)
Property rights are really important. If you don't have private property rights, you cannot have a free society. Our founding fathers believed that. You have to have things that are outside the control and direction of the government. That's part of the reason why we're so interested in taking on property taxes because I think if you own your home, at some point for them to tax you for decades on property that you've already purchased and own outright, that undercuts the idea of having private property rights. And so we're fighting that fight and we're going to continue doing a lot on that in the coming days, weeks, and months. But as a whole, you have to have rule of law and you have to have
Governor Ron DeSantis (09:00):
... enforcement for private property rights. And when that happens, you have a chance to have a free society flourish. When it doesn't happen, it's like throwing sand in the gear of the economy. It's much harder to have strong growth. It's much harder to produce opportunities. And I think some of these states that have let this squatting get out of hand, they're going to come to regret that they did that in the future. Because I do think people look at this, and if you're going to be investing in property, you want to know that you're going to actually be able to control that property. And for Pete's sake, you shouldn't have people just show up and start squatting on that property and then all of a sudden be able to weaponize the law against you when you didn't do anything wrong. So I appreciate the folks that were involved in this legislation. We will make sure that our folks have the tools they need to be able to uphold the very, very significance of private property rights.
(09:55)
Okay, we are going to have a lot of great speakers here before I sign the bill. So first, we're going to start with our senator, who will be the president of the Florida Senate soon, Jim Boyd. Where's he at? Come on.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Thank you Governor. Thanks for being here. And again, sorry for the weather, but we appreciate the sunshine so much more when we have days like this. So it's all part of the plan. Today, really, I just want to thank you all for being here. You're a vital part of our economy. Small businesses and families is what we're all about. So fortunate to live in a state of law and order and a governor that insists on that and makes sure that we adhere to that. These problems that we're addressing today, and the bill sponsor will talk to it, it's almost unbelievable that we have to deal with those types of things. But thankfully, Florida will. Florida will always stand with you on your property rights, on the ability for you to raise your families the way you like and to run your businesses the way you like. So I'm proud to be part of that. The legislative friends that are here today are proud to be part of that as well. And we will always stand with you to do the right thing.
(10:57)
So Governor, thank you for always being there with us and always doing the right thing as well. And we're happy to hear from those that enacted this or brought this to the table. And thank you again for being here.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Hello everyone. I'm State Representative Peggy Gossett Seidman from Boca Raton, and I am proud to be the sponsor in the house of this great bill against squatting. I'd like to sincerely thank the governor for listening to the people and bringing this forth today. This bill is proof that when we listen to residents, good things happen. And it occurred, because I was speaking to Senator Anna Maria Rodriguez last summer of Miami, and she said, "Oh, we have all these issues with commercial squatting." And I said, "Well, that's interesting, because last week a couple called me and they're unable to get people out of their then deceased parents' restaurant for years and wanted to know if I could assist. Looking into it, we did have instances of squatting throughout the state, and it occurred to me that maybe we should do something about it, and we filed this bill. The rightful owners have spent a lot of money and time with no success trying to have the persons evicted from this property.
(12:12)
Often, these structures throughout the state are utilized for human trafficking, drug use, and as the governor mentioned, theft rings, and they run under the radar because we didn't have the teeth and the statutes to try to remove them in all cases. We've got several people in my county using fraudulent leases. And when law enforcement arrives, they do not always have the capacity or the ability to judge if the leases are in fact valid or not. And this is another occurrence. We had several instances in Gainesville where a motel was taken over by nine persons causing $15,000 in damage. In Melbourne a warehouse was taken over and had been storing illicit items and allegedly trafficking persons out of it. And nearby here in the Tampa West Shore Mall, several places had been abandoned and taken over by squatters.
(13:08)
The remedy to this is our bill. It empowers law enforcement to remove squatters while they have the papers filed by the lawful owners of these properties. And these owners have the papers executed, signed and take them to law enforcement who then accompany them to the properties where the persons are illegally occupying. The sheriffs can verify the information and peaceably remove the persons who are there, perhaps unwittingly. If in fact criminal activity is discovered at the time, then they're empowered to pursue charges against those bad actors. It provides for criminal charges up to a first degree felony for authorizing or leasing properties in conjunction with criminal activities. In all, squatting removes people who should not be living in these properties, and it allows our good businesses and our tourism to thrive. It will protect our $1 trillion real estate market in Florida and 3.7 million businesses in the state. It will make us a safe and moving forward state in order to protect our businesses, our residents, and our tourists. And with that, I thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Good morning everyone. My name is Gil Reyes and I'm the regional general manager here at the Weston, Sarasota, and also the president of FRLA, the Suncoast chapter. First and foremost, I would like to thank the governor and extend my deepest thanks for his leadership and support in signing this bill into law. Governor, your commitment to strengthening our state's hospitality industry and ensuring clarity in our regulatory framework means a great deal to all of us who live and work in this space every day. I also want to take a moment to recognize and thank the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association for their tireless advocacy and collaboration. Your team has been instrumental in helping us shape this legislation, and your insight was critical in making sure that it works for everyone, from business owners to our guests. To my colleagues in the hotel industry and restaurant industry, some of whom are here today, thank you. You're on the ground experience and practical feedback help make sure this bill addresses real world challenges, and it's in a thoughtful and balanced way, and I thank you for that.
(15:43)
At its core, this bill brings much needed clarity and modernization to how we define and manage lodging establishments in Florida. It revised the definition of transient and non-transient public lodging establishments, clearly distinguishing between those rented for less than 30 days and those rented for 30 days or more. This clarity will help reduce confusion and ensure more consistent enforcement and understanding in the industry.
(16:13)
Equally important, this bill updates the notification process for guest removal in certain situations, such as when a guest fails to check out or pay for the room. Under this new law, written notice must be provided and can now be delivered by email, text message, or in printed form. This flexibility helps meet the realities of how we communicate today while still maintaining fairness and transparency for all parties involved.
(16:46)
This legislation is a win for Florida's hospitality industry. It brings our laws in line with current practices, offers clear guidance and supports both property rights and consumer understanding. Again, thank you Governor DeSantis, the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association, and all my hospitality colleagues who contributed their voices and perspectives. This was a team effort and I'm proud of what we have accomplished together. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Good morning everyone. I'm Sarasota County Sheriff Curt Hoffman. I'd like to just start by thanking my legislative delegation, who I consider friends, and obviously, the governor. The governor has mentioned that this is a state that values the rule of law in every single circumstance. And once again, I'm not surprised the legislature, and governor, you as well have turned to the sheriffs to be able to enforce this. We're up to the task and we're certainly going to do that. I was mentioning to the governor we were back here before that we do almost 700 evictions a year as a sheriff's office here in Sarasota County, so that's two or three of these a day that we're doing. On the residential side, last year's bill was very, very
Speaker 4 (18:00):
... Very helpful to us. I'll just share a quick story with you. We had an elderly lady who passed away. Somebody hand wrote themselves, in pencil, a lease. Moved into that lady's house, and the neighborhood was up in arms. Then she started to destroy the house, actually cut all the plumbing and the wires, and everything out of the house, and tried to sell it for scrap. We went over there. We were having to go through the regular eviction process.
(18:22)
The family of this deceased elderly lady lived in London, and her attorney was in London, and we're trying to correspond. They just couldn't understand why it was taking so long, to get their loved one's house back, and take control of it. We found out after we were able to get her out of there, that she had been following the obituaries in the paper here in Sarasota County, and she'd done this two or three other times, by writing what appeared to be a lease.
(18:45)
So, it's very important now on the residential side, that we're going to be able to get those folks out of there, and give the estate, or the family members, their property back. On the commercial side, this is extremely important. I was the general counsel for the sheriff's office, and we dealt a lot with the transient issue, Governor. So, having that language in there that defines what transient is, makes it easier for my deputies to go out there and get these folks out, and restore that.
(19:09)
And that's, if not equally important, more important on the commercial side, because those folks are trying to make money, right? Pay their employees, pay their rent. Many times we would come in there, and we would find the facilities destroyed. So, putting teeth in this, and once again, the governor coming down here, and my friends in the legislature coming down here, and saying to the media who will broadcast this message out there for us, "If you come to Florida, mess around and find out." Right, governor? Thank you.
Governor Ron DeSantis (19:42):
All right, so we're going to sign. So, whoever wants to come up, you can come up, and we'll make it official. So... Today is the 2nd of June. And then, this is the hotel. All right. Okay. Who wants one? Take one.
Fiona (20:41):
Thank you sir.
Governor Ron DeSantis (20:44):
Take one. Yeah. Who else? Anyone else?
Fiona (20:47):
Thank you.
Governor Ron DeSantis (20:47):
Anyone else? All right.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Here we go.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Thank you, Governor.
Governor Ron DeSantis (20:52):
[inaudible 00:20:52] Okay, I got one more. All right, I've got one peanut gallery. Good catch. Good job guys. Thanks so much. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Oh good, Fiona.
Fiona (21:25):
You know the last bill, my kids got a hold of the pen. They're children, and this is a sharpie.
Governor Ron DeSantis (21:30):
I know. Well, that's why we have... The one I threw is not permanent. So, anytime we have kids, we try to do that. So, well, this is good work. I think Florida leads the way again, and we want to make sure that people respect property rights, and that property owners have the ability to utilize their property. And to have these scams, where people come, especially when they're trying to leverage somebody's deceased relative or something, I mean, give me a break. We're not going to stand for that in the state of Florida. Okay. Any questions? Yes.
Reporter 1 (22:04):
Governor, have you been asked to help increase security at Jewish facilities across the State, with what's happening across the country?
Governor Ron DeSantis (22:12):
Well, first just let me say, we have a huge, huge problem with anti-Semitism running wild in this country right now. And I know it doesn't represent the vast majority of people, particularly in the State of Florida, but why are we letting people like this guy into the country from Colorado? He should have never been here to begin with, and he sure as hell should have been sent home when his visa expired. And this is the wages of having, basically an open border for four years, under the previous administration.
(22:48)
But this whole thing where... And you saw it starting on October 7th. You saw what's happened at our universities. You've seen attacks against Jews. You saw the two Israelis in D.C. You see this Colorado. This is really sick, but we've got to take this seriously, and you shouldn't be allowing this. Having policies that allow this to foment. I do think that there's a lot that goes on, quite frankly, in some of the lies that get spread in the media, that probably gets some of these guys wound up. But it's really... Now, we've done a lot in Florida over the years. This is nothing new for us to be responding.
(23:33)
When October 7th happened, we were rescuing Americans out of Israel. We did that before Biden even did it, and he was the President of the United States. So, we have done security for Jewish day schools. After October 7th, we sent highway patrol and other assets. So, I don't know what we've received. I haven't personally. That doesn't mean that one of our agencies hasn't. But we'll continue to respond the way that we've always responded. This type of stuff will not fly in Florida, and we will do what we can obviously to prevent. And certainly, if anyone makes the mistake of doing what this guy in Colorado, you will absolutely live to regret that. Yes.
Reporter 2 (24:16):
The hurricane season has just begun. This area was hit very badly last year. Do you have anything you want to say to Sarasota County residents, as they get ready for this season?
Governor Ron DeSantis (24:25):
What I would say is, prepare now. What I found is, if you don't prepare, then it just seems like then you end up getting one right? When people prepare... I think it's just weird the way it goes. But prepare. Now I will say this, we had three Gulf Coast hurricanes last year, two majors. Debbie didn't probably impact this area as much as the other two did, but it did have impacts across the west coast of Florida, for sure. And these are not easy things to deal with.
(25:04)
I would say this though, in spite of all the challenges, find me another part of the country that would have bounced back as quick. You just would not see it. I mean, I know there's a lot more that needs to be done, don't get me wrong. But most of these areas that would get hit like this, a lot of them, it'd be like a lost decade, right? That's typically what happens in other parts of the country. So, I think that Floridians take this stuff seriously, and they respond.
(25:37)
And look, we do stuff at the State level. The local folks do stuff, leading up to it, to prepare any search and rescue, and then working to get the power on, the debris, all that stuff. And we'll do that again, if it's called on it. I do think that, just on the heels of Milton and Helene, one of the things that was the most frustrating for people, is dealing with FEMA. The FEMA, they want to be able to rebuild, or this or that, and all of a sudden you have to go through this massive bureaucracy. And I know local governments, some of the local governments, have been difficult. I do think we're going to be signing legislation, that's going to try to streamline some of that. That I know some of our legislators in those affected areas, what we're talking about.
(26:20)
But our view when we're preparing, and helping to meet the immediate needs in the State level is, we do not want to get ground down in bureaucracy. I mean, that's the enemy of these things. I don't know what FEMA is going to look like this hurricane season. I know that's kind of in flux, but certainly, hopefully we don't get anything. But if you do, I know President Trump is committed to clearing through bureaucracy. How that happened with Milton and Helene was not good for our property owners, our homeowners, who were just trying to rebuild. So, hopefully we get a break. You always knock
Governor Ron DeSantis (27:00):
... on would. I mean, we've had six major hurricanes in seven years. The previous 10 years we didn't have a single hurricane hit, and historically, sometimes that's the way these things go. We are, of course, at the state level, preparing as if we are going to have to face some of these events, and I think that Floridians should do the same.
(27:20)
Now, I know that we've had... Well, I shouldn't say we. Some have had difficulty getting the budget teed up, and that includes some tax breaks. You got to have the tax breaks for the disaster-preparedness. I mean, Floridians are able to go in, they're able to get what they need, and they're able to save money on those disaster-preparedness holidays. We normally would be in one right now, usually the first two weeks of hurricane season. Then we do another two weeks at the height of hurricane season as we get in to late August, early September. And so hopefully we'll get that so that folks get relief on that.
(27:56)
But different storms have different things that happen. So Hurricane Ian, obviously it impacted this area and impacted Fort Myers most dramatically, but within 36 hours, Wawa was open. Publix was open. The gas stations were [inaudible 00:28:14]. I mean, it was a massive storm, and yet you go down there and you had that. You had Helene. It was a lot of surge, obviously. It didn't necessarily disable the ports. But then with Milton, you had Port Manatee and you had Tampa that that were offline for a little bit. That interrupted their ability to receive fuel.
(28:35)
So you ended up having gas stations that weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, some of them didn't have the power even though they're supposed to have generators, so they didn't have their generators, others with the fuel. So we set up these gas stations and basically people could go and get fuel and do that, and I remember we did it... You, Kay, you were with us. We were here doing that. We did it in Hillsborough County. We did it there, and it's fine, we're happy to do it, but literally, we had those same fuel contracts ready for Ian. We just didn't really need to use them. We ended up going in some of the more rural areas where we had some problems.
(29:10)
So there's all these different things that can happen, but I do think that folks that have been through this understand the drill. You may not immediately be able to get fuel at a gas station after a storm, so have some fuel, top off your tank, and have a canister in your garage. That'll be good for you. Assume that you may need to have a few days' worth of food.
(29:32)
Now, we've been able to set up these pods where you have the food, well, mostly the water, but also some snacks. We've set those up within 24 hours, 36 hours, of these recent earthquakes. That is not the norm. Normally, it's at least 72 hours before you set up any of these points of distribution, and it may be that some of those things may not be able to be set up depending on if there's damage. So just prepare to have that. Prepare to be without power.
(29:58)
Florida and the hurricane responses in the last four years have had the fastest power restoration in the history of hurricanes. That's just a fact. I mean, Milton had 4.2 million restored in under seven days. You don't see that. That is not the norm. And people who are native Floridians or have been here a long time, no, historically that wasn't the norm. And we've had great buy-in from the utilities, even the co-ops, everyone down the line. And that's huge if you can get things back on quick, but that may not be doable, right?
(30:30)
So assume you're going to go days. Many days. I mean, we say seven days on everything. Non-perishable food, water, ability to generate electricity if you want to have that, whether it's a generator or whatnot, having a fuel supply, all those things. What you don't want to do is get hit with the rush right before. That's when you have the long lines. That's when you have some of the shelves. I mean, look, we sometimes will have panic buying. Now, I think given what the west coast of Florida has been through, I think probably you probably wouldn't see as much panic. I mean, I remember when Irma came down. I mean, I wasn't governor, but you had Miami. Every water was off the shelf at one point. It was gone.
(31:12)
So just prepare. Just know that this is something that could happen. You guys have a lot of great folks at the local level here, law enforcement, first responders. We've got the strongest emergency management state agency in the country, and we'll be in that fight with everybody, so prepare, but I just hope that we just have an uneventful summer. We've got some stuff on the horizon that'll be fun for the state, and let's just do that and then get into the fall and winter without having it, would be my hope. But we would definitely never assume that that's going to happen, and we will always prepare as if we're going to have other events.
Speaker 7 (31:53):
Governor, the Manatee County commissioners are trying to restore wetland buffers that have been removed from a past commission board. They say they're being met with some pushback from the state. Do you have any comment on that?
Governor Ron DeSantis (32:05):
Who in the state is doing that?
Speaker 7 (32:07):
[inaudible 00:32:07] the department of the DEP.
Governor Ron DeSantis (32:12):
The Florida Department of Environmental... You have to talk to them about it. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what was said or not said, so I would just refer you to the DEP on that one. Okay. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it. I'm out.
