PUNTA GORDA -- Fishing from seawalls of vacant lots in Burnt Store Isles and Punta Gorda Isles could soon be prohibited.

The City Council voted 4-1 for a proposed ordinance today that will ban fishing from seawalls of BSI and PGI vacant lots without prior consent of the vacant-lot owners.

“I don’t think any one of us intend to take away that right (to fish),” Councilman Bill Albers said. “There are lots of (public) places to have access (to the water).”

Councilwoman Marilyn Smith-Mooney, the lone dissenter, didn’t feel the ordinance was fair.

“It’s almost being judgmental against fishermen, as a class of people, as opposed to people who go on vacant lots to have a picnic,” she said. “I feel it is discriminatory, making the assumption that people who are fishing are bad and up to no good.”

Others felt the ordinance wasn't appropriate.

“This ordinance says to me that people who live in Punta Gorda their whole lives are not welcomed in (BSI and PGI),” said Greg Larrison, a sixth-generation Punta Gorda resident and an angler.

The BSI and PGI associations supported the ordinance.

BSI Association President Joe Sabatino said all his association wanted was for the ordinance to require lot owners to either give or deny their permission to fish from seawalls.

PGI Civic Association President Don McCormick said he supported the ordinance to deal with a few “nasty fishermen” fishing along the seawalls.

“We do need our police to have an effective tool when they respond to a disturbance,” he said.

But Deputy Police Chief Butch Arenal said officers haven’t had problems with fishermen after receiving calls from residents, nor has his department seen any abnormal spike in crime when anglers fish the canals.

Swanny Note: This is merely another effort to keep people from being able to feed themselves during the times of economic hardship that is just waiting down the road.