[Steve-O]

Brian....it's a healthy debate and worth talking about.

We are not on those beaches you speak of.

Let's take IRB for instance. The kiters are in the water. Is the city of IRB govern the water? Or is the water under the jurisdiction of some other governing body? Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, Pinellas County Sherrif, Florida Wildlife and Game, all the above?

What is your objective? Do you even know what your talking about?

Do all the sailing Regattas that take place around Clearwater out of the Clearwater sailing center have to pull permits to sail in the Gulf?

For that matter, do Triathletes have to pull permits to swim in the water and compete?

How bout all the skimboard competitions around town? Do they pull permits.

How bout SUP races. Do they have to pull permits?

Do we really want to get the government involved in our sport? Is that where you want to take this?

Bottom line is I don't think we have to pull permits to land kites on the beach at the end of a race.

And as stated, we cleared it with the Parks and Recreation Dept. before hand to start the race at Sand Key and the years ago at Honeymoon.

For what it's worth, I knew you were going to go here. I was already prepared for it.

Somebody else chime in please. We made the effort in the first place to respect the swim zones. That wasn't enough. We then moved the race outside of all buoys, that's not enough. Now permits are requested after park officials said we don't need them.

My guess is we could pull permits for every city and you know what, that won't be enough either. Just state the obvious Brian....you don't want a race in the Gulf. You don't support this great cause. You want more government involded in kiteboarding.

I'm not pissed, just tired of arguing to someone that really doesn't want to look at both sides.