Smoke investigation goes viral – Man told barbecue smoke must stay on his property
Someone out there needs to quickly develop a way to keep all smoke coming from someone’s grill or smoker from leaving their property lines. That’s because the trespassing smoke issue has gone viral.
In South St. Petersburg, Florida one man, Dwayne Matt, has been the subject of 15 complaints. All but one came from the same neighbor. While some of these complaints were handled by the police or firefighters, who Matt says told him to just keep on cooking, the latest incident was bumped up a notch.
That’s when Dwayne was visited by an environmental specialist from Pinellas County and some of the conversation was captured on video.
Here are excerpts from a letter by county administrator Mark Woodard explaining the confrontation to Pinellas County Commissioners:
There have been 15 smoke and odor complaints received since September 2014 related to the subject residence, none of which resulted in a citation from the county. Fourteen of those complaints came from one neighbor. Additionally, the City of St. Petersburg issued a citation to the property owner in 2014 regarding the possession of commercial grilling equipment in a residential neighborhood.
In June of this year, in an attempt to address the numerous complaints and educate the homeowner, the county mailed an advisory letter to the property owner which detailed the county and state regulations regarding open burning. In addition, the letter provided suggestions which would minimize the impact of smoke and odor on neighbors from grilling activities.
It is important to note that we were not there to regulate barbecue grilling.
