Ava Lasseter does not like the view in front of her Sarasota County home.
A house under construction. Port-a-potties. And, a few weeks ago, a sprinkler running mid-day while Southwest Florida grapples with its most severe drought in nearly a decade.
So she filed a complaint with Sarasota County over the violation of local water restrictions. Since then, she hasn’t seen any more daytime watering from her neighbors.
She is among hundreds of Sarasota County residents who have submitted complaints in the last several months about alleged violations of water restrictions that the Southwest Florida Water Management District established in November and escalated in April in response to the “extreme water shortage.”
“When I saw that sprinkler,” Lasseter told Suncoast Searchlight, “I was both angry at the developer’s obliviousness to the environment they share with the rest of us, but also knew how to report a complaint.”
Current water restrictions limit outdoor watering to once a week, set specific hours when irrigation is allowed, limit aesthetic fountains to four hours per day and require restaurants to provide water to patrons only upon request. They also require municipalities to issue citations for first offenses without any prior warnings.
This is the first time Phase 3 water restrictions have been implemented since 2017.
A Suncoast Searchlight review of records found Sarasota County municipalities are unevenly enforcing the rules, with some jurisdictions actively patrolling for violations and issuing citations, while others rely primarily on education and warnings. Few cities have issued fines or provided easy ways to file complaints — gaps that could be undermining compliance.
Suncoast Searchlight requested water-restriction complaints from every municipality in Sarasota County and asked local officials how they are responding to violations.The answers revealed a patchwork system.
“Without good communication that is cutting through the noise of everyday life, and without having code enforcement out working to stop violations, there’s going to probably be no compliance, or very little compliance,” said Abbey Tyrna, the executive director of the environmental nonprofit Suncoast Waterkeeper.
Southwest Florida is facing a deficit of 12.8 inches of rainfall compared to the average 12-month total, as of an April press release from the water district. The drought is not unprecedented, but could become dangerous for local ecosystems and wildlife, Tyrna said.
“Birds could start going hungry,” she said. “Fish are going to be stuck.”
Across Sarasota County, the drought also has heightened scrutiny on how residents, businesses and developers are using water during the regional shortage.
Complaints obtained by Suncoast Searchlight range from straightforward allegations of overwatering to angry critiques of lush lawns, irrigation schedules and wasteful water use.
Among them:
“Always has neon green yard compared to the entire neighborhood. Always very lush and green but we never see them watering during the times that we are restricted to watering. I think they overwater at night when we are asleep,” one complainant wrote.
“The house was purchased last year and (has) sprinklers that have been on for at least the last six months every morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.” wrote another. “Not good in a drought.”
“This home is a repeat violator,” yet another complainant wrote.
Suncoast Searchlight reached out to several individuals who filed complaints of potential water violations. Most did not want to speak out publicly against their neighbors.
Barbara Hughes, who lives in unincorporated Sarasota County, did agree to speak. In her complaint, she reported a nearby house where the property owners were “watering at incorrect times and watering the street.”
Hughes, who grew up on a farm in Ohio and has lived in Sarasota County since 1971, said she’s dismayed at how many of the swampy areas that used to hold water have now dried up for development.
“They want to have green grass,” Hughes said. “I want to have water to drink.”
Here’s a breakdown of water restriction enforcement and the violation complaint process for each municipality in Sarasota County:
Unincorporated Sarasota County
Between Nov. 5 and April 23, Sarasota County received 253 complaints through an online portal for water restriction complaints. The portal is linked in online information the county published about water restrictions.
Some of the complaints were duplicates and others were outside the county’s jurisdiction. One came from Maine.
As of April 17, the county has stopped sending warnings before issuing fines for verified violations, in alignment with the district restrictions.
“While Sarasota County typically issues a warning ahead of a citation, the county must follow this guideline set by (the Southwest Florida Water Management District),” Sarasota County spokesperson Samatha Parker said in an email to Suncoast Searchlight. “It is not optional.”
As of Tuesday, the county had issued 54 citations. Fines for water restriction citations in the county range from $100 to $500.
Englewood Water District
The Englewood Water District, which covers 44.5 square miles in southern Sarasota County and western Charlotte County, has received 49 water violation reports from community members as of April 14, although some appear to be duplicates, with the same address reported two or three times.
The reports were received through an online reporting portal, which is linked in the district’s online notification of the restrictions.
The Englewood portal allows people to report violations anonymously, and all of the complainants chose to do so except four Englewood Water District employees, who submitted nine of the 49 complaints. Four addresses were fined.
Prior to this year’s restrictions, water violations within the district were handled by Charlotte and Sarasota counties, according to Ashley Aguiar, the executive assistant at the water district.
Aguiar said that the district also has been reviewing water-meter data and looking for accounts with unusually high water consumption.
A first offense in the district incurs a $100 fine, a second offense $300 and any subsequent offense $500.
City of Venice
The city of Venice says it has received no such complaints during the current water shortage.
However, the city has no online portal for complaints. Instead, community members must call the front desk of the Venice Police Department to report water violations. Information about how to make a complaint is not listed in the city’s online notification of the restrictions.
Code enforcement officers are patrolling for violations and contacting violating property owners to educate them about the restrictions before fining them. The city’s online notification of the restrictions, which was updated Wednesday — after Suncoast Searchlight asked city officials about enforcement policies — states the city will begin issuing citations instead of warnings on Monday, May 11.
“Venice has a lot of part-time residents … unaware of these restrictions. Because of that reason, we continue our sweeps throughout the week for those who are currently in another region in order to give the residents an opportunity to correct the watering systems that they use,” Jim Davis, the Community Resources Supervisor for the Venice Police Department, said in an email to Suncoast Searchlight.
Utilities Director Javier Vargas said the city sent letters to about 350 people who use potable water for irrigation, and information has also been given online and through water bills.
“The purpose is to, No. 1, educate our residents,” Vargas said.
The fine for violating water restrictions in Venice is $75 for a first offense and $175 for every following offense.
City of Sarasota
The city of Sarasota received just one report of a violation as of Tuesday, according to Utilities Director Verne Hall.
“This is a smaller entity, so it’s a little bit more intimate,” Hall said. “Our customers are actually very aware of what goes on with the water and wastewater system.”
But Sarasota has no specific online portal for residents to report water violations. Those who wish to file a complaint must call city offices or use the general code compliance portal already in place. Reports also can be made by calling city offices, Hall said. The city’s website, where information about the water restrictions is listed, provides no information about how to make complaints.
No one at the city is actively looking for violations, either, according to Hall, who said instead “we rely on the eyes and ears of our residents.”
If a violation is found, Hall said the utilities department would first leave a door hanger at the address with information about the water restrictions before involving code enforcement.
Possible fines range from $100 for a first offense to $500 for repeat offenders.
“We try to do that as a non-accusatory, non-aggressive manner to just let the person know, because they may have missed it,” Hall said. “They may not have changed their automatic settings. Who knows? It could be a variety of things. So, we do that to just give them a nudge in the right direction.”
City of North Port
The city of North Port received five complaints since the water shortage began, according to records. The city has no specific portal for reporting water violations but does have a pre-existing portal, called North Report, to report code violations of any kind.
North Port utilities staff have been patrolling weekly to note any potential violations and send them to the city’s code enforcement officers.
“For any address where there were reported concerns or cases, our inspectors made direct contact, left notice and followed up to provide education on the restrictions and/or warnings as appropriate,” North Port Communications Manager Jason Bartolone said in an email.
No fines have been levied for current water restrictions. According to Bartolone, most residents contacted by code enforcement claimed they were unaware of a potential violation, so the city has focused on education.
Bartolone said that in order to impose a fine, a property owner would have to be given due process through a hearing, and if a magistrate determined the violation was founded, the fine would be $10 per day up to $1,000.
Town of Longboat Key
The town of Longboat Key has had one complaint of a water restriction violation this year, which code enforcement officers determined to be a mechanical failure and resolved without a citation, according to Allen Parsons, the Director of the Longboat Key Planning, Zoning and Building Department.
Residents can submit complaints through the town’s general online request portal, or its online citizen portal, by calling the city, or emailing codeendforcement@longboatkey.org. Information about where to report was not included in the town’s online announcement of the water restrictions.
Code enforcement officers have also been watching for water restriction violations, Parsons said.
Parsons said if more complaints are received, the process for responding would be a courtesy notice first, which may not result in a citation or fine.
Fines for violating water restrictions in Longboat Key would be $100 for the first offense, $250 for the second offense and $500 for subsequent offenses.
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
