City staff have proposed revisions to Jacksonville Beach's Special Events Policy covering alcohol rules, holiday scheduling and sea turtle nesting protections, alongside a plan to move Country Fest to February with an outside producer.
Events Coordinator Alyson Riley outlined the changes in a Sept. 14 memo to City Manager Michael Staffopoulos. The policy, last revised in November 2024, functions as a living document that staff update as needs change.
Alcohol and intoxicant rules
The revision keeps the existing limit of beer and wine-type beverages at festivals but adds detailed definitions of what qualifies and explicitly bans distilled spirits. A new provision also prohibits marijuana, CBD, hemp, THC and kratom products at all special events, not just festivals.
Council member Bill Horn asked whether the ban risked a legal challenge, since those products are sold legally elsewhere in the city. “This is a question actually for David,” the council member said. “You’ve got a gas station over here and you have the other store that sells marijuana or whatever products … but you’re telling me I can’t do X.”
City Attorney David Migut said the restriction governs use of city property rather than regulating sales broadly. “If we try to regulate something that the state has preempted” would be a concern, Migut said, “but I don’t see any problem with this.” He said the rule falls “under our police powers.”
Holiday scheduling changes
The policy already bars non-city-produced events for seven days before and after the Fourth of July, while other holidays carry a lighter single-weekend restriction. The revision extends the seven-day buffer to also cover Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Mayor Christine Hoffman argued for adding Juneteenth to that extended category, citing “some challenges with that date” and “a small gap between Juneteenth and the rest of the holidays anyway.” There was agreement on this change.
Police Commander Thomas Crumley said the restrictions exist mainly to protect officers from overwork, and that off-duty staffing has grown harder regardless of city scheduling, since neighboring agencies have shifted to mandatory overtime for their own events. “The off-duty isn’t as palatable as it used to be,” he said.
Sea turtle nesting requirements
The beach event rules for nesting season are substantially rewritten. New provisions require daily nest surveys before 9 a.m., a marked 10-foot buffer around any nest in an event area and immediate reporting of any unmarked, injured or sick turtle found during an event.
Temporary structures are capped at a combined 300 square feet and barred within 25 feet of a marked nest overnight. Event vehicles are now restricted to designated beach access points and barred from dunes.
Council member Sandy Golding credited staff for handling a recent conflict well, ahead of the new rules, describing a volleyball event held near an active nest where “our special events team did a really good job coordinating with the sea turtle patrol.” She said the new vehicle-buffer language grew directly out of that incident. She said she asked Riley “to add some language in there to require any vehicles that are going to be used for these events to also keep a certain distance away.”
Separately, the revision clarifies that surf camps, volleyball camps and similar recurring business activities that don’t meet the definition of a special event instead require a standard business tax license.
Country Fest
Staff also proposed moving Jax Beach Country Fest, currently held in June, to February. Riley told the council the event’s growth has outpaced what staff can manage alone. She noted that “it’s grown significantly over the past three years, which is a great problem to have. We feel like it would be beneficial to partner with an experienced festival producer.” No potential producer was named.
A February slot is opening, Riley said, since Jax Beach Festivals Inc., producer of the long-running Springing the Blues Festival, has discontinued that event. Jax Beach Festivals is also moving the Seawalk Music Festival, which it produces, from February to April, shrinking it from three days to two. Riley cited the hot weather and frequent afternoon thunderstorms in June as a factor for moving Country Fest.
The proposed arrangement would bypass competitive bidding. Riley said the city’s legal department had already cleared that path, “as long as we have council approval,” referring to Migut’s guidance.
