Gov DeSantis signs bill ensuring public access to Florida beaches

With one signature by Gov. Ron DeSantis, visitors to Florida will no longer have to worry about potential trespassing charges for walking on the beach.

The governor signed Senate Bill 1622 on Tuesday, which overrides a 2018 law that limited public access to privately-owned beaches and prohibited counties from passage of "customary use" ordinances that allowed beach access.

The measure also streamlines beach restoration efforts.

"By repealing the law, we return the authority back to local communities," DeSantis said at a signing ceremony in Santa Rosa Beach. "Cities and counties can now adopt ordinances recognizing recreational customary use, walking, fishing, sunbathing, swimming, without having to obtain a judicial declaration. This bill is about restoring local control, cutting legal red tape and putting our residents first, but it goes even further to strengthen our coastal communities."

The 2018 law came about after property owners sued Walton County and its commission over its "customary use" ordinance passed in 2016 that said "the public's long-standing customary use of the dry sand areas of all of the beaches in the county for recreational purposes is hereby protected."

This sand area extended from the toe of sand dunes to the high-water line.

The law required cities and counties to apply any "customary use" ordinances parcel by parcel, a long and laborious process that invited litigation by landowners.

It also resulted in a lawsuit by Walton County against property owners over the implementation of "customary use" rights in 2018 that was resolved in 2023 after five years of litigation.

Sen. Jay Trumbull, the bill's sponsor, who represents all or parts of Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Jackson, Washington and Calhoun counties, said while Walton County has 26 miles of coastline, only seven of that is publicly accessible.

"This bill is much more about much more than policy," the Panama City Republican said. "It's about families, it's about tradition, and it's about restoring something that never should have been taken away in the first place. Back in 2018, when the state passed a law that blocked local governments from recognizing the customary use of beaches, no one felt that impact more severely than Walton County. Overnight, people who had walked the same stretch of dry beach for generations were being told that they were trespassing. This is that's not the Walton County, I know, and it's not the Florida I believe in.

"The people here weren't asked for anything unreasonable. They just wanted to keep doing what they've always done, walk the beach, toss a football, build a sand castle with their families, and instead, they got confused, conflict and courtroom battles all to protect a simple, time-honored way of life."