I’m shaken. I just got off the phone with my good friend Harry Criswell and he told me some very disturbing news.
See, Harry bought a home in Port Royal, Florida, a little while ago. I tried to talk him out of it at the time.
“But it’s Florida, dear,” I said over the phone while curling my bare toes into my tiger skin rug. The diamonds in my pedicure sparkled in the late afternoon sun. “Florida blows. And if you want more bang for your buck and neighbors you can silence with either cash or guns or both, look south of the equator.”
But Harry didn’t listen. He wanted a place to park his yacht. I conceded as this was a noble enough cause in my book. Harry bought the house on the waterfront and parked his yacht behind it for a year. And what a good year it was. Yacht parties every time I rolled into town. Do you have any idea how rad a yacht party is? No, you wouldn’t, and you never will.
Anyway, everything went to shit last year, when, according to NBC, Code Enforcement came knocking with a written notice of a violation. The story read:
A city ordinance requires a 20-foot buffer zone between properties in the neighborhood. The city said the 108-foot yacht encroaches on the setback by about 20 feet.
What’s weird is that Harry got served these papers a whole year after he parked his yacht there. I had to hand it to him, though: he was very polite when talking it over with NBC:
“I was astonished, I didn’t realize we were doing anything wrong and frankly, you know, all my neighbors had been out on the boat, they liked the boat, so I was quite surprised,” he said. “There’s quite a few other vessels and situations in the Port Royal area that fall into this category, too, and I’m not exactly sure why I happen to be the example.”
Since then, Harry has been petitioning the city to keep his yacht where it is, but the who’s who of the Port Royal Property Owners Association (aka the Commies) keep denying his requests.
“Side yard setbacks exist for the protection of the community, but critically for adjacent property owners,” said Chad Ott with the association. Chad. Chad. This man’s name is Chad.
The city “received numerous letters from property owners opposing the petition” because they’re afraid that “it could affect property values and set a bad precedent moving forward.”
I smashed my favorite Baccarat glass when I heard that. “Pick that up!” I shouted at the servant about to bring me another. I wasn’t even sure if he spoke English. “With your fingers!”
This right here is exactly what is wrong with democracies. It’s a nice idea and everything, but it also means that poor peons in South Florida get to have a say in what you do with your property and your yacht that you paid for with your own goddamn money.
Yesterday, the council unanimously voted against Harry’s petition. Those bellyaching bitches. He responded, “I find it hard to believe that a nice boat sitting in a backyard will actually devalue somebody’s property. As far as views, it’s a low profile boat.”
Don’t the people in Port Royal know that it’s a shithole already? Harry would be doing them all a favor by leaving his yacht there—it’d provide the illusion that Naples is actually a nice place and that people with actual money spend time there.
Idiots, the lot of them.
“Harry,” I told him, “some advice from a veteran in this business: next time, just buy your own island.”
(h/t to Tyler!)