For now, if you want to get married on Key West’s Smathers Beach - a two-mile stretch along the Atlantic - all you have to do is show up.
Soon that may change. The city government is working on new guidelines that will require a license and proof of insurance for those who conduct business on the city’s beaches and in its parks.
“We regulate the street performers and we regulate the people at Mallory Square,” says Commissioner Teri Johnston, who is leading the effort. “We regulate the people that show movies at Bayview Park, and yet we have public weddings and wedding planners on Smathers Beach and now we’ve got gyms and health programs that want to use Bayview Park for private gain.”
Johnston has held two meetings with local wedding planners. At first they were unhappy with the prospect of regulation, but she says they were much more amenable at the second meeting.
“In return, the city could perhaps put out a list of qualified and licensed wedding planners to actually give them an edge over the wedding planners that are coming down from Miami and Fort Lauderdale and utilizing our beaches for free and putting some of them out of business,” Johnston says.
She says the city may use the income to improve its parks and add another bathroom at the beach.
