Pinellas Park council repeals local flood-code amendments and updates adult-entertainment rules

Pinellas Park — The Pinellas Park City Council on Feb. 26 voted unanimously to remove local technical amendments to the city’s flood-damage control provisions and to adopt code changes that align local rules with recent state law on adult-entertainment establishments.

Danielle Stewart, long-range planning manager, told the council that ordinance 4258 (adopted in 2024) had included local technical amendments to the Florida Building Code that limited the size of enclosures below base flood elevation and required non-conversion agreements. Stewart said the Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board formally denied those local amendments on Jan. 12, 2026, and that the city must therefore repeal sections 18-3-801.2 and 18-3-801.3 of the land-development code. "The PCCLB did formally deny the proposal for our local technical amendments and therefore the adopted ordinance must be modified to remove those sections," Stewart said. The council approved ordinance 2026-04 on second and final reading.

In related action, planning coordinator Kira Brown presented two ordinances to update city code sections dealing with adult-entertainment businesses. Brown said the changes were needed to reflect statutory changes enacted in January 2025 that "prohibit individuals under the age of 21 from working in adult-entertainment establishments." The revisions amend chapter 4 (alcoholic beverages), chapter 13 (business-tax receipts) and several zoning definitions so business-tax applications must include a sworn statement of compliance and so that establishments that intend to employ or permit anyone under 21 will not receive a city business tax receipt. The council adopted ordinance 2026-05 (code amendments for alcoholic beverages and business-tax receipts) and ordinance 2026-06 (land-development definitions and zoning changes) on second and final reading; both votes were unanimous.

Why it matters: Repealing the local technical amendments removes provisions the county board rejected and preserves the city’s compliance process with the county construction-licensing review. The adult-entertainment changes implement state law at the local level and add an application-level compliance statement for business-tax receipts.

Council members asked no substantive follow-up questions during the hearings and no public speakers objected to these items at the meeting. The ordinances include standard severability and effective-date language; staff indicated the measures follow the county and state review processes.