What the Clearwater mayor said that convinced the City Council to close Clearwater Beach

In his second-to-last meeting as Clearwater Mayor, George Cretekos made a passionate plea to City Council members to close Clearwater Beach to help contain the spread of Covid-19 coronavirus.

The council voted 4-to-1 Wednesday evening to close the city’s beach for two weeks, beginning at 6 a.m. Monday, March 23, as part of a wider emergency ordinance that also temporarily closed libraries and recreation centers and cancelled or postponed public meetings. The order does not impact operations at restaurants, which can remain open but have to reduce seating capacity by 50 percent and stop selling alcohol at 10 p.m., under a separate directive from the state. The order also does not stop access to the Memorial Causeway bridge

Clearwater is the first Pinellas County city to close its beach. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gaultieri said Tuesday that not allowing people on the beach could make the situation worse, because people will instead crowd into tighter indoor spaces.

Several Clearwater business owners argued against a beach closure at the Council meeting. Cretekos said he spoke to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, and the governor said he would support whatever was in the best interest of the city of Clearwater. After that call, Cretekos talked to Gaultieri, who advocated for the measures announced by Pinellas County Tuesday, keeping beaches open but ordering hotels to spread out beach chairs and telling visitors not to gather in groups of more than 10 and to maintain a six-foot distance.

But Cretekos also spoke to a couple of Clearwater doctors, who had a completely opposite view. Additionally, he said,  the city has been getting calls accusing it of being reckless by keeping its beach open.

“When you are the No. 1 beach in the country, people look to you  to be a leader,” Cretekos said. “As difficult as this may be for the short term, the idea of trying to flatten the curve, at least from the information I’ve been reading, gives us a better opportunity to bring this under control sooner rather than later.

“I don’t want anyone to get sick on Clearwater Beach, but I also don’t want someone getting sick on Clearwater Beach and then it coming back to haunt us because of what may happen later on … I realize, as the sheriff was saying, you are just moving the problem. But others will follow suit. This is an opportunity for the No. 1 beach in the country to say that we value public health and we think our responsibility is to do what we can as a community, as a city, as businesses on the beach to protect the public health as best as we can.

“We’re suspending our meetings for 30 days. We’re doing things for ourselves that we’re not willing to do for the community and for our visitors and for our reputation and that weighs on me an awful lot, and I would hope it would weigh on you.”

Initially, Cretekos wanted the beach to close immediately, but he agreed to hold off until Monday to give beach businesses a chance to prepare for the closure.

He said it was a difficult decision. “We understand the impact it has on our businesses, but we also understand the impact it has on our residents and visitors. We’re trying to protect people’s health and sometimes that’s inconvenient for all of us.”

The cities of Tampa, Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale earlier decided to close their beaches, and several other destinations throughout the state also made decisions to adjust beach access according to Visit St. Pete/Clearwater. They include:

• Collier County closed beach parking facilities as of sunset Wednesday until further notice.
• The city of Sanibel also closed public beach parking as of Wednesday evening.
• The town of Fort Myers Beach is closing all public parking, public beach access points and commercial activity starting at 6 p.m. Thursday and will remain in effect until at least April 21.
• Lee County closed all county-owned beaches and the Fort Myers Beach Pier effective 6 p.m. Thursday until further notice.

Wednesday’s emergency City Council meeting took place one day after the Clearwater municipal election. Frank Hibbard, a former Clearwater mayor and City Council member, was elected to succeed Cretekos, who was term limited.