On October 23, 2015, the City of North Miami Beach (“City”) enacted Ordinance 2015-18, codified in the City’s Code of Ordinances as Section 9-35, entitled “Camping Prohibited”, prohibiting camping in public areas, and providing for the immediate removal of prohibited items located in public areas that pose an imminent life/safety hazard to the public, including, but not limited to, propane gas tanks, fireworks, firearms, gasoline and the like.
On October 23, 2017, Glatze, and Florida Carry, Inc, a not for profit organization, filed a lawsuit captioned Glatze Militum, LLC and Florida Carry, Inc. v. City of North Miami Beach, et. al. (“lawsuit”), alleging that Section 9-35 of the City’s Code of Ordinances, providing for the removal of firearms, was in contravention to Florida Statute 790.33. The aforementioned statute, entitled, “Field of regulation of firearms and ammunition preempted” expressly exempts cities from enacting or enforcing any ordinance, rule or regulation, to regulating firearms. The lawsuit further alleged that Florida Carry had a legitimate fear that if one of its members were to become homeless, they may become subject to the City’s Code of Ordinance 9-35, which is an unlawful regulation on firearms in contravention to Florida Statute 790.33, as described above.
As a result of the abovementioned lawsuit, on December 19, 2017, the City Commission passed Resolution 2017-121 approving a settlement agreement to resolve the lawsuit, which in part provided that the term “firearm” would be removed from Section 9-35 of the City’s Code of Ordinances. Therefore, in accordance with the settlement agreement it is recommended that the Mayor and City Commission approve the proposed text changes on first reading to Section 9-35 of the City’s Code of Ordinance to remove the term “firearm”. |