VENICE -- Among the many who cheered Sarasota County's decision to buy Snook Haven, an enterprising few wondered: Whom would the county pay to run the popular riverside restaurant?

Pouring the beer and serving up the burgers promised to be lucrative at the Old Florida roadhouse, which earned $581,000 in gross profits in 2005. After news of the deal hit in November, phone calls and e-mails poured into the county from nearly two dozen interested vendors.

But more than four months later, county officials say they are still only preparing to take formal bids.

In the meantime, they've turned over Snook Haven's keys to Sunrise Sunset Concessions of Siesta Key, the county's largest concessionaire, which since 1999 has enjoyed exclusive rights to cater to the estimated 2 million who flock to Siesta Public Beach annually.

The six-month agreement with Sunrise Sunset Concessions, which includes an option for renewal in another six months, has other interested vendors crying foul.

They question whether Sunrise Sunset was given preferential treatment and say the county had ample time to instead put management of Snook Haven out to competitive bid.

"As a competitor, I don't like it at all," said Mike Pachota, co-owner of Sharky's on the Pier in Venice, who inquired about the job and said his calls were never returned. "I think they should have asked us if we would consider a six-month concession agreement, and I think they probably would have been very satisfied with what we would have done."

Patrick Love, a former county firefighter who hopes to secure the Snook Haven concession, said that Sunrise Sunset's interim deal amounted to an unfair advantage over the other vendors who will be jockeying for the longer-term contract.

"Now they've got somebody in there. And if you've got somebody in there already, do you honestly think the county's going to throw you out?" asked Love, who also said nobody at the county responded to his inquiry. "I figured the worst that can happen to me is that they tell me no, but they didn't even tell me that."

Under the deal, Sunrise Sunset Concessions must keep Snook Haven running as it did before and hand over 10 percent of its gross monthly income. In return, the county will make all necessary repairs and pay most of the bills, including water, utility, sewer and trash.

Over the course of a full year, that would add up to around $60,000, one county official estimated in mated in an internal e-mail.

"That's worth a lot of money," Pachota said. "It's very unusual that a landlord would pick that up."

County officials defended the terms, saying they were designed to entice an agreement and compensate for the uncertainties that comes with taking over an unfamiliar restaurant business.

"All they had to do was call me, and I wouldn't have needed any enticement," said Pachota. "The location is enticing enough for me."

County officials insist that the arrangement was born of necessity.

John McCarthy, the county's parks and recreation manager, keeps a list of interested vendors, but said he offered Sunrise Sunset Concessions the interim deal because they're a safe bet -- at present, the county's largest concessionaire.

McCarthy said the move also kept the county from having to bolt the restaurant's doors while shopping for vendors.

Even a temporary shutdown, he said, would cost the county in lost revenues during the busiest season.

"We didn't want a situation where we were going to close Snook Haven while we didn't have a contract," McCarthy said.

In general, the county may not enter into contracts without seeking competitive bids, a policy that safeguards against kickbacks, promotes competition and ensures that tax dollars aren't frittered away.

But county procurement codes allow the bid process to be skipped in the event of an emergency. It defines that as a circumstance "posing clear and immediate danger of injury to persons or property or of substantial economic loss to Sarasota County."

In e-mails exchanged days before closing on the property, county attorneys leaned on that provision to justify passing the initial contract to Sunrise Sunset Concessions.

"You can probably make the case that closing down Snook Haven due to lack of a concessionaire would amount to such a circumstance," wrote Thomas Wolfe, an attorney with the county.

McCarthy elaborated, saying that county officials feared that a closed Snook Haven might become a target for vandals. It would also cut into revenues and possibly affect business in the long run.

Those close to the deal blamed the delay in soliciting bids on their understanding that the previous owners could run Snook Haven temporarily, if necessary.

But weeks before the closing, the former owners withdrew that offer, citing personal reasons.

That prompted a rush to hire Sunrise Sunset . . . cessions that took at least one member of the county's purchasing staff by surprise.

"Yikes," wrote Jack Haley, a county procurement specialist, in response to the attorney's message, according to an e-mail obtained by the Herald-Tribune. "A brand new agreement within two days."

It's not the first time the county's dealings with Sunrise Sunset Concessions have raised questions.

In 2004, the commission voted to extend the concessionaire's contract for an additional five years without raising its flat monthly fee, reviewing its financial records or taking bids from other interested vendors.

It didn't because the contract wouldn't let them, county officials said. The 1999 agreement afforded Sunrise Sunset the right to request an additional five years under the 1999 terms, and provided it hadn't violated any of those terms, the commission was obliged to grant it.

"They're very shrewd businessmen," said their attorney, Bob Anderson.

County Commissioner Jon Thaxton said Sunrise Sunset Concessions enjoyed no special favor in commissioners' eyes.

"The thought process was motivated by the seamless continuation of the operation. We already had that particular group under another contract, and it frankly was just expedient to have them operate it on an interim basis," Thaxton said.

"I made it very clear to John McCarthy that this in no way gives them any advantage whatsoever in competing for the long-term contract over other vendors."

Peder Jannson, who formed Sunrise Sunset Concessions with his friend, business partner and neighbor Joe Panek in 1999, doesn't lament the Snook Haven arrangement.

"What would you do?" Jannson, 62, asked in a telephone interview Friday.

When he and Panek, both 12-year Nokomis residents, took over at Siesta Key in 1999, they negotiated a five-year concession contract in exchange for monthly payment to the county of $17,500, the same rate they pay today.

The contract doesn't require Sunrise Sunset Concessions to disclose how much it is bringing in at its Siesta Key concession, and Jannson declined to do so on Friday.

That contrasts with contracts at some other public facilities, such as Sharky's in Venice, where the owners pay a monthly rent and a percentage of the restaurant income.

At Snook Have, Jannson has kept all the original employees, several of whom said business is as good as ever under Jannson.

Though they can no longer pour  hard liquor (the owners opted to keep their license), nothing about the old Myakka River haunt has changed.

That seamless transition shouldn't surprise customers or county officials, Jannson said, given his company's success running the Siesta Key concessions.

Among other improvements he made to the beach pavilion since 1999, Jannson added an ice cream parlor, a Caribbean-theme market and additional seating.

"I have a track record over there of a nice clean operation," Jannson said of his Siesta Key operation. "That place was a dump when I took it over."

And when the time comes to choose a permanent vendor for Snook Haven, Jannson isn't afraid to suggest that his current six months should make him the favorite among his competitors to win a long-term contract.

"I'll have six months of business under my belt," he said.

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