This is really ridiculous, when you have 20 or more hosts together ready to chip in for an attorney, i'll be ready to get involved then, in in Sarasota.
This is how the dirty Sarasota council works, I'll explain:
Sarasota is a Florida Charter County. Regular counties in Florida have specific powers granted to them by the state, and only those powers. Charter counties on the other hand, can make any rules they want That Don't Conflict With State Law.
That last part is important. In the charter creation statutes, it states that 'No Charter County shall make or enforce laws controlling rents.' The only reason the Sarasota restrictions stand is because no-one challenges them against state law. This is the best part: the reason they keep this law is because it keeps poor folk out of the decent areas and for the holidays, unless you can afford to vacation for a month straight!
Sarasota council members front like they give a dang about the people of Sarasota, but they are mostly just financed by big hotel lobbies and whatnot, they are corrupt as D.C. They know all of this, but are in big hotel pocket. Your mistake is going to the County meetings to plead your case instead of getting aggressive with the commissioners.
The minute Sarasota complains to me about my airbnb after being paid thousands of dollars in taxes, I'm going to ask the local court to get an order to the commissioners to enforce the law equally across Sarasota (which they can't) and then I will personally go down to Main Street and collect the few thousand signatures(takes ten days) it takes to have the commissioners removed from office.
If this is your livelihood, you better be ready to attack the commissioners directly without mercy, they are hypocritical fakes in bed with big hotels and will not back off otherwise.
