TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Watering violators jailed

ADVERTISEMENT

By STEPHEN THOMPSON

spthompson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 8, 2009

Updated: 11/08/2009 12:33 am

PINELLAS PARK - As Xuan-Nuong Lam Tran pulled her Mercedes ML 350 into a parking spot at a post office, another customer flung open her own car door, causing minor damage.

Tran, a travel agent, might have received a ticket for careless driving that day in July and gone on her way. But she was handcuffed and taken to the Pinellas County Jail, feeling humiliated.

Her crime?

Ten days earlier, according to court records, she failed to answer a charge she had watered her lawn on the wrong day.

At the jail, Tran rolled her fingers in black ink, and her mug shot appeared on the jail's Web site along with those of suspected murderers, drug dealers and child molesters.

Two months later, a man was driving along Central Avenue, without violating any traffic laws, when a St. Petersburg police officer checked his license plate number and found there was a warrant for his arrest.

Like Tran, Glenn Bell, 28, was taken to jail for failing to address a lawn-watering fine.

The two are among an increasing number of people in Pinellas County who find themselves entangled in the criminal justice system because they have failed to pay a $188 fine for watering their lawns on the wrong days.

An end to warnings

Only two people were arrested last year, from January through September, in connection with a lawn-watering violation, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. But during the same period this year, the number jumped to 22 - an 11-fold increase.

That's because Pinellas County Utilities and municipalities no longer issue warnings for watering offenses in the midst of what the Southwest Florida Water Management District calls an extreme water shortage, said Terrie Grace, who oversees the water restriction enforcement program for the county utility.

Before Nov. 14, 2008, homeowners and business owners were given a warning the first time an enforcement officer saw the sprinkler system activated on the wrong day, Grace said. After that date, they were slapped with a citation and fine.

That strict stance resulted in the number of citations skyrocketing. From January through September last year, 38 citations were issued by Pinellas County Utilities.

Once the warnings disappeared, however, the number of citations soared, to 1,015 from January through September this year, Grace said.

It wasn't that more people were watering their lawns on the wrong days. The number of violations was virtually the same for the two nine-month stretches - 1,046 violations in 2008 compared with 1,069 violations in 2009, Grace said. In 2008, the majority of violations didn't result in citations because property owners followed watering rules after the warnings.

Violators who receive a citation have two choices. They either can pay the $188 fine or they can contest the fine by showing up in court on a date specified on the citation. An arrest warrant is generated if they do neither.

One such warrant was generated for Luis E. Martinez, a St. Petersburg dentist who suspects his sprinkling system had been tampered with.

The sprinklers outside his office activated on a Sunday morning, four hours after his designated day, Martinez said. He was cited May 7. He said he tried paying the fine online, but couldn't because of an incorrect citation number.

"Little did I know that a warrant would be issued for my arrest for not appearing in court for the watering violation," Martinez wrote in a letter placed in his court file.

Treated like a criminal

Unlike Bell and Tran, Martinez wasn't arrested on the street. Like most violators who miss a court date, he learned in a letter he had to visit the Pinellas County Jail to straighten out the situation.

What he didn't know was that he would be treated like a criminal.

Although Martinez did not have to mix with the jail's population as Bell and Tran did, he had his mug shot taken and was fingerprinted.

"I said, 'Excuse me?'" Martinez said in an interview. "I think it's ridiculous."

Martinez, on his way to the jail, thought it might be a good idea to bring his children as part of an impromptu educational experience. But he thought otherwise when he found out what was happening.

"I'm texting my family, 'They're booking me,'" Martinez said. He eventually saw his jail photo and thought he looked incredulous.

A warrant also was issued for Mark Lawton, 58, an insurance manager from Largo.

Lawton said he had done electrical work on his home and reset timers for an alarm clock, the television and the microwave. But he forgot to reset the sprinkler system, and it activated at the wrong time. He received the citation but thought his wife had paid it. When he received a letter from the clerk of courts, he realized he had to make a trip to the jail.

"You kind of feel like a criminal, I guess," Lawton said. "You get that letter in the mail saying there's a warrant for your arrest. It's like, 'Wow.' It's something foreign to me, I'll tell you that."

John Carpenter, 38, a self-employed storm chaser, found himself in a similar situation.

Carpenter said a neutral ground wire shorted out and he had to replace the transformer on his sprinkler system. He didn't reset it, however, thinking the old timing schedule would kick in.

He said he was given a citation but forgot about the court date.

"I didn't think it was a big deal," Carpenter said. Then he got the letter saying there was a warrant for his arrest and he needed to go to the jail to post bail.

"I think it runs along the same lines as a scare tactic - 'If you don't take it, we'll show you,'" Carpenter said. "I think it's very, very wrong."

Tran's story is different.

She said she had paid the fine.

Tran was working at her office on a Saturday in May when her home sprinkler system activated. Her then-husband usually managed the timer, but he was in Dallas. Tran didn't know how to work it.

She said she called Pinellas County Utilities the next Monday and tried to pay by phone using her credit card, but was told she would have to wait for a letter from the clerk of the courts. Before the designated court date, she said she paid the fine in June at the courthouse in Largo.

It didn't matter the next month.

After she was told she was under arrest for the lawn-watering violation, she begged two police officers to take her to her office so she could show them a copy of the check and a receipt from the clerk of court. They declined.

As she put her hands behind her back to be handcuffed, she turned her head away from passing motorists "because it was so humiliating," she said. The jail wasn't any better.

In custody for 7 hours

She was put in a room with two women, one a prostitute and drug addict, the other a bad-check writer. Nearby, a woman strapped into a chair was screaming for hours.

Tran spent more than seven hours in custody. When she later complained at the clerk of courts office, she said she was told the $188 payment she had made wasn't entered into the system before the warrant was generated. Someone from the office apologized.

"Sorry for what?" Tran asked. "I've been in jail like a criminal for something I didn't do."

Tran and the others say there should be other ways to enforce water-restriction violations. One might call for repeated warnings before a citation kicks in. Others say violators should be handled differently by the courts - not the same way child rapists and murders are processed.

In Hillsborough County, no one gets arrested for watering on the wrong day.

If a $100 initial fine isn't paid, the violator appears before a special magistrate, who may try to work out a payment schedule.

If the fine isn't paid, additional fines can be levied, to the tune of up to $1,000 a day for a first-time violator and up to $5,000 a day for a repeat offender, said Karen Matches, manager of Citizen Boards Support, the administrative office for six quasi-judicial boards in the county. Eventually, liens can be placed on the property where the lawn-sprinkling violation occurred and on the owner's personal property, such as a car.

"I'm sure there are other ways to handle it," said Martinez, the dentist. "Now I have a record because I have a watering violation? That's ridiculous."

Tran now waters her lawn on Wednesdays. As soon as the sprinkler system stops, she unplugs it from the electrical outlet.

"I don't want to go to jail again," she said.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT