05/05/06

County clean-up of Snook Haven in progress

A rusted out school bus, old boats, trash and stacks of moldy mattresses -- a list like this might make you think you're visiting the Sarasota County trash dump.

Instead, you're at the latest addition to the county parks department -- Snook Haven.

Bud Wagner, the restaurant and fishing camp's former owner, tried to warn Sarasota County that it didn't know what it was getting itself into by purchasing 2.2 acres where East Venice Venice dead ends at the Myakka River.

And if it did, the county never would have paid $2.6 million for the property in March.

"I called and told them they were buying a place that's completely in violation," Wagner said. "They went ahead and bought it anyway."

County officials and staff say they knew all along what they were buying. Many of the potential problems were identified or answered during the due-diligence phase of the purchase, finalized March 15.

But a recent visit showed that many of the offending items are still there and sitting on church property owned by the Diocese of Venice. Church property also is still being used as a parking lot for cars and boat trailers.

John McCarthy, head of county parks, said all of the issues have either been corrected or are being corrected.

"We know there is debris, and we've removed a lot of the old stuff that is out there," McCarthy said. "We know there are more items.

"We definitely want to get the site cleaned up, and get the diocese property cleaned up. That's where a lot of the items that need to be taken care of are."

Sarasota County was aware of easement issues too. The entrance to Snook Haven, for example, goes across a private property owner's land.

Wagner pointed to a more serious problem identified when he owned Snook Haven in 1975-80. After five years, he abandoned his plans for a restaurant because, Wagner claims, the county wouldn't permit any more septic tanks and his capacity was only 48 seats.

He also claims the county wouldn't permit any additional structures to be built.

Both things have happened since 1980, which Wagner doesn't think is right.

McCarthy doesn't know about what happened 30 years ago. The site has passed all health inspections, including for septic tanks.

"We have a legitimately operating business out there, in terms of all the activities going on out there," McCarthy said.

Sarasota County continues to receive vendor bids from businesses wanting to operate the restaurant. The deadline to apply is May 18, and there will be a nonmandatory meeting for bidders at Snook Haven 2 p.m. May 3.

The county is hoping the deal will help fund operations and improvements at Snook Haven.

"We want to continue the operation, pretty much, as is," McCarthy said. "We want to continue the tradition of kayak access and boat access on the river."

You can e-mail J.J. Andrews at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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