NEWS

4THE SUN ISLAND NEWS

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IN BRIEF

Easter service marred by discord

Dissension disrupted the 2022 Easter sunrise service at Manatee Beach, resulting in one pastor being excluded from future services. Rev. Ed Moss, of CrossPointe Fellowship, stood up during the service to condemn the ecumenical message delivered by some of his fellow Island pastors. At a meeting following the service, members of the sponsoring Kiwanis Club of Anna Maria Island voted not to invite Moss to the service in the future. Kiwanis members agreed to continue hosting the popular service, which welcomed an estimated 4,500 participants this year and raised more than $10,000, which will be split among the participating Anna Maria Island churches.

Golf cart registration required in Holmes Beach

Holmes Beach golf cart owners have 90 days to register their golf carts with the city’s police department to continue legally driving them on the street. During an April 26 meeting, city commissioners voted unanimously in favor of passing the final reading of an ordinance restricting golf cart usage. The new ordinance requires that all golf carts be registered with the city and restricts usage of the vehicles to city residents. To receive a registration sticker from the city, owners are required to show proof of residency, including a homestead exemption or an annual lease. Any golf carts driven in the city without the registration sticker will be subject to a traffic stop by Holmes Beach Police Department officers. The new regulations do not apply to low-speed vehicles and others that require a license plate issued by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles.

Taxes increase for business owners

Business owners in Holmes Beach will see higher fees when they renew their city business tax receipts (BTR). City commissioners voted unanimously in favor of raising all BTRs citywide by 5% to help cover the administrative costs associated with issuing the certificates and renewals. While current business owners won’t see the increase until their renewal is due, new applications will be processed at the increased rates effective immediately. All BTR applications in Holmes Beach are processed through the city clerk’s office.

Holiday weekend parking allowed at AME

The city of Holmes Beach will offer some relief from the parking woes associated with Memorial Day weekend by allowing beachgoers to park at the normally restricted Anna Maria Elementary School parking lot from May 28-30. The overflow parking will be available dawn to dusk, and all rules that apply to public beach parking apply at the school. AME is located at 4700 Gulf Drive.

SUBMITTED | GOOGLE MAPS The Ugly Grouper soon may have some indoor seating to add to the popular outdoor gathering space for the restaurant.

Ugly Grouper expansion planned

The Ugly Grouper is growing with the addition of indoor seating.

BY KRISTIN SWAIN

SUN STAFF WRITER | kswain@amisun.com

HOLMES BEACH – Commissioners weren’t in agreement on the issue but the Ugly Grouper’s owners will be allowed to increase the restaurant’s seating size.

During an April 26 meeting, attorney Scott Rudacille appeared before commissioners to plead his client’s case for increasing the seating capacity of the Ugly Grouper based on the number of available parking spaces. Commissioners Kim Rash and Jayne Christenson voted against the increase but it passed with a simple majority.

In 2017, the restaurant’s amended site plan was approved by the city commission to include 173 total seats before 5 p.m. and a maximum of 239 seats after 5 p.m. with a limit of 176 outdoor seats. Under the newly amended site plan, the restaurant will be able to have 240 seats at any given time throughout its business hours, with a maximum of 176 outdoor seats. Rudacille said his client is seeking to expand indoor dining options, taking advantage of an adjacent building formerly used for retail and office space. In addition to acquiring the building for the restaurant, he said it also frees up associated parking spaces which were previously only available to the Ugly Grouper’s patrons in the evening.

City Planner Bill Brisson said that between all of the restaurant’s parking areas there are more than enough parking spaces to allow for the expansion of indoor seating. He addressed the issue of a pizzeria being installed at the adjacent former AMI Carwash site and said there are enough parking spaces on the site to allow for both restaurants to use the lot.

In addition to approving the seating expansion, commissioners also approved the replacement and addition of some speakers on the property, with the caveat that they each have independent volume controls. They also specified that bollards need to be installed in front of the outdoor seating area to better protect patrons from drivers, a suggestion made by the city’s building official.

While some residents stepped up to speak in favor of the restaurant’s growth, noting its appeal to visitors and family-friendly atmosphere, other residents asked commissioners to reconsider approving the amended site plan.

Margie Motzer, who lives near the Ugly Grouper, said she’s concerned about the restaurant being so big, covering five parcels and continuing to grow. She said in addition to being concerned about an increase in noise in the adjacent residential neighborhood, she’s also worried about the expansion causing more traffic and creating an unsafe situation for people traveling along Marina Drive. Resident Nancy Deal added that she’s also concerned about the potential increase in traffic around the restaurant, with the mix of transportation types using Marina Drive.

Business continues to soar at SRQ

With the addition of new carriers, more parking, increased fuel capacity and other expansion efforts, SRQ is on pace for a record number of passengers in 2022.

BY JASON SCHAFFER

SUN CORRESPONDENT | jschaffer@amisun.com

BRADENTON - Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) has been one of the world’s fastestgrowing airports for more than a year, and according to Chief Operating Officer Mark Stuckey, the unprecedented growth shows no signs of slowing down.

Stuckey addressed the April 18 meeting of the Manatee County Tourist Development Council to update them on the state of SRQ and its growth.

The airport shattered last year’s record numbers for the first three months of the year, reaching the one million passenger mark by the end of March, he said. In March, 442,846 passengers traveled through SRQ, a new record for the most passengers served in a single month and a 59.5% increase over March 2021. Passengers traveling through the airport year-to-date total 1,085,500 compared to 564,066 year-to-date for 2021, an increase of 92%.

“In 2018 we had six airlines and 12 non-stop destinations. Now, three years later we sit with 11 airlines and 53 non-stop destinations,” Stuckey said. “Six of the carriers have long-term lease agreements with us, which include Allegiant, American, Delta, Jet Blue, Southwest and United. This a good thing and gives us stability because we know they are going to stick around for a while.”

For the previous 20 years leading up to 2018, SRQ stayed steady with around 1.1 to 1.3 million passengers a year, according to Stuckey. This number took a giant leap to 3,163,543 in 2021, and if the first quarter of 2022 is repeated for the rest of the year, that number will be eclipsed by a million or more for this year.

SRQ is also a debt-free airport, another factor that allows rapid expansion with little interference. The debt-free status has also allowed SRQ to be price competitive with larger neighboring airports in Tampa and St. Petersburg.

“We’ve seen our cost per passenger go from being about twice as much as Tampa and Fort Myers to half the cost of those airports,” Stuckey said. “We are now a much more competitive airport and are looking at doing a number of construction projects with grant money or money we get from passenger facility charges. We don’t expect to take out any bonds at this point, which will allow us to keep our rates and charges very low.”

It’s not just the airport that’s growing, according to Stuckey; the area that the airport serves, Sarasota and Manatee counties, are growing by 20,000 residents a year. Stuckey notes that this is an addition of a small city every year; very few areas in the country are seeing this kind of population explosion, so growth of the airport is proportionate to the growth of the area it serves.

SRQ has completed construction projects including new fuel tanks that drastically expand the amount of fuel on hand to serve the rapid expansion. The airport has also added close to 400 new parking spots, ramp expansions for aircraft overflow parking and a security checkpoint expansion that includes a fifth security lane to improve wait times with a sixth lane coming soon. SRQ claims security wait times of 5-15 minutes, much lower than passengers are used to at other airports.