FLORIDA MANDATE as of March 27, 2020

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The order mandates vacation rental operators to refrain from accepting new guests or making new reservations for stays for a 14-day booking period commencing on Saturday, March 28, 2020. There are some exceptions to the order, including:

  1. Long-term rentals (30 days or more)
  2. Rental stays where guests are currently staying in a vacation rental or have previously booked a stay with a scheduled check-in date of March 28, 2020.
  3. Rentals to persons performing military, emergency, governmental, health or infrastructure response, or travelers engaged in non-vacation commercial activities.

So, In am interpreting this to mean that I cannot accept new reservations until April 12th.
Unless, of course, the order is extended which it well might be. Does this seem like the correct interpretation to you?
What threw me was "stays for a 14-day booking period", at first I thought it meant that I could not accept 2-week bookings, but I don’t think that is correct. Very confusing.
I have Lowered my price considerable and given 30% monthly discount.
I have set No Minimum Stay, No Maximum Stay, No further requirements.
Currently I have 3 men staying in the rental for 2 weeks and they are there on business, not vacationing. Very grateful for that.
We have applied for SBA Loan/Grant?
Is there anything else we should be doing. What do you think about the language on the Florida Mandate?
Many thanks

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I read it as saying you can’t take any booking during the period at all unless they meet the criteria for 1, 2 or 3. @Victoria_Dolci

Here in the UK you can’t take any STR bookings at all for an ongoing period unless they are key workers, someone attending a funeral etc.

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Did you know that here in the US in some states they have no lockdown orders in place at all? And some large states like FL and TX are still allowing church meetings and hundreds are still showing up.

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I do, I really feel for people in the US.

To us here in Europe it seems completely unbelievable that this is happening in the US.

How many people are your government willing to sacrifice before they do something?

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It seems the figure for Trump was 100,000 to 200,000.

The following states have no statewide orders, only orders in regions of several states: Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming.
And there are no orders at all in Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

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He is a compulsive liar. It’s incredible. And there are people still defending him. As you know I studied the Hitler and the Holocaust more than the average person (I don’t claim expertise) and I really truly now understand to the core of my being what happened to Germans in the Nazi era.

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That’s been in my mind almost since he took office. People always ask, when discussing WWII and the Holocaust, how the German people could have let Hitler rise to power like that. Well, it’s more than obvious how.

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Even Germans who survived spoke admirably of Hitler even though he caused a war that killed millions, destroyed their cities and carried out genocide. My right brain knew it was possible for us to have another Hitler-like leader, but my left brain still recoils that it actually happened here, in the US.

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The United States is a democratic republic that recognizes states’ rights over federal law. Therefore, imagine we’re Europe wherein every state is pretty much a country but overseen by the EU committee. As such, states can sue the federal government to stay independent of any federal rulings.

So California closes down 3 weeks ago (for the sake of arguement). Florida does it last week. Oklahoma is still open for business and is defying the office of the President. (doesn’t matter who’s in office, they’ll do their own thing thankyouverymuch).

Now, is all this a good idea? Yes and no. But that’s a conversation for another civics lesson.

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Well, if we’re deciding which state did good and which did wrong, we could always look at the additional body bag purchase, per capita. Just saying like…

JF

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I wasn’t going with right/wrong/body bags purchased. I’m just stating a simple set of facts. We’re a loose group of states with some crazy laws. EDIT And no matter what a sitting President says, he/she does not have blanket powers of martial law overriding states’ rights without approval of the senate and congress. Three tier judiciary. Which would create lawsuits and a supreme court hearing.

Germany and Switzerland took weeks to close down after Italy and Spain did. sigh.

I spoke to someone in Florida today who said she didn’t realize the extent of the virus and its toll on the world until she got her head out of her butt this past Wednesday.

I credit this group for keeping me informed internationally and my parents for encouraging same.

It’s like she’s shocked - shocked - to find gambling going on in Casablanca…

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Ach, a debate for mañana :slightly_smiling_face: way past my bed time!

Stay safe all of you,

JF

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