Avid fisherman Danny Lee has lived in Boca Raton for five months and it didn’t take him long to find the advantages of fishing on the Deerfield Beach international Fishing Pier. When workers tore down the buildings last fall, in preparation for rebuilding the pier, however, fishermen, especially, had a problem: the bathrooms went, too.
Many of have resorted to District 3 Commissioner Marty Popelsky’s solution.
“I’m there almost every night and if I have go go, I go into the Wyndam,” Popelsky said.
Not everyone has that option, however. The manager of the Wyndam has objected to a steady stream of fishermen traipsing through the lobby to the bathroom.
“I fish on the pier whenever I get a chance and some of the pier fishermen are not allowed to go in because of how they are dressed,” observed District 2 Commissioner Ben Preston.
Fishermen aren’t all that happy about the trip to the Wyndam, either.
“If you are fishing on the pier, you do not want to leave your gear out of your sight,” explained Vice Mayor Bill Ganz, the commissioner from District 4 -- leaving too many to resort to the obvious solution.
“Fishermen have used the ocean,” Mayor Peggy Noland reiterated earlier this month, “and we have kids out there and…”
District 1 commissioner Joe Miller asked for a resolution two months ago. Commissioners agreed March 20 that, at least during construction, portable privies proved a possibility -- provided they could be placed.
“We’ve gotta get some out there,” said Kevin Klopp, the city’s CRA director. “But the best location – past the fence and near the bait shop, a few feet off the sidewalk -- we are going to get complaints, especially from the Wyndam.”
Noland suggested Areca Palms in big planters. “They are quite bushy,” she said, “so you couldn’t see.”
When Klopp said that proposal proved problematic to Wyndam brass, Noland drew the line.
“We put up with their construction,” she said, “It’s give a little, take a little…”
“Yay! Finally!” said fisherman Vinny Keitt, when he learned Thursday the port-a-potties were being installed on Saturday. “They have been promising us that for a while and they should have done that from the very beginning…”