If you look for vacation rentals in the Florida Keys, you may notice a lot of boats offered as lodging. Now Monroe County has brought a code compliance case against one of the owners.
Michael Dewitt says he's put $130,000 into fixing up his 40-foot sportfishing boat, docked behind his house on Little Torch Key.
So when a property manager approached him about renting it as a vacation rental on Airbnb, he agreed.
"It sat behind my house empty, I had a couple of neighbors that were doing the exact same thing - that are still doing the exact same thing," he said.
But Monroe County code compliance said Dewitt was breaking that say you can't rent for less than 28 days without a special permit.
At a hearing Thursday, Special Magistrate J.G. Van Laningham found Dewitt broke the rules and fined him $2,500. Dewitt did not contest the charge, but said afterwards he thought the county's approach to vacation rentals was unfair.
His case came up after others, all of whom received multi-thousand dollar fines.
"There's no criminals in here. These are people just trying to make a dollar, to earn a living to do what it takes to get by," he said.
Dewitt says he has no plans to try to rent the boat out in the future.
"I've never received a dime for this. All the money went to the property management company and they still haven't paid out on it," he said. "It's just been a horrible, horrible fiasco."
County officials said they couldn't say whether they plan to bring more vacation rental cases against boat owners.
