ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — For several years, Bill Mitchell, owner of Cetacean Cruise Charter Boats, has been running his 30-passenger dolphin cruise boat from his home on West Perdido Avenue in Orange Beach.

His home is on a dead end street, he is literally surrounded by commercial Real Estate, and all his neighbors seem to love him.

But when he got ready to add a 39-passenger sailboat to his fleet he ran into an obstacle. That obstacle was the zoning ordinances of Orange Beach.

In January 2003, Mitchell requested a home occupation business license in order to legally run his dolphin cruise.

He leased the lot next door to his property in order to adequately supply parking spaces for his business and a his request was approved by the city. Then in January of this year, Mitchell requested another license in order to add the sailboat.

Mitchell’s request went before the Planning Commission and received 6-3 vote in favor to recommend conditional use approval, and it headed to the city council for a final vote.

The issue for the council was to decide if, indeed, what Mitchell was doing was considered a home occupation under the present guidelines, or if his business needed to be classified otherwise. 

More than a dolphin cruise

According to the guidelines, a home occupation can have no more than two unrelated employees. Presently, Mitchell and his wife run the dolphin cruise, but his plan is to have an additional captain and deck hand run the other boat to offer something more.

“My intention is to diversify,” Mitchell told the council. “With so many dolphin cruises now days, and the pieces of the pie getting smaller, I want to do something different that maybe other people can’t do in the area.”

Mitchell wants to do more than just take people out on a boat to see dolphins. He wants to be an educator. For the past several years during the off-season, Mitchell has worked at the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys, working with the trainers and educating himself about all aspects of dolphin life.

“I want to be a leader in the community in conservation efforts, specifically focusing on marine mammals and the dolphin population,” Mitchell said. “We do this through outreach, education and each time we take a group out we talk to them about the effect they can have and their impact on the health of our dolphins.”

Several years ago there was a pilot program in Key West called Dolphin Smart. It evolved from the fact that the dolphin cruise operators in that area were crowding around the dolphins so much that it was affecting their behavior in a negative way. Knowing that legislation was on the horizon if they did not self-regulate, those in the dolphin cruise industry along with government agencies, created the Dolphin Smart program, laying out guidelines for rules as it related to understanding the behaviors of the dolphins.

In 2008, Cetacean Cruises became the first federally recognized Dolphin Smart company outside of Key West, Fla.

Still, despite the effort of Cetacean Cruises to educate the public, the question before the city council remained. Is this a home occupation, or is it something more?

Zoning Issues

“The problem I have is there are a lot of businesses that pay a lot of money for zoning so that they can run this type of business,” Councilman Brett Holk said. ”So to me, to have 18 parking spaces for a home based occupation is a lot to ask for.”

Mitchell maintained that his lot and the three beside him were completely surrounded by commercial businesses and water, and there would never be a chance of that area expanding residentially.

Mayor Tony Kennon said while he respected Mitchell’s work and his attempt to do the right thing, he felt what he was doing did not conform to what would be defined as a home occupation.

Al Bradley, chairman of the Orange Beach Planning Commission explained otherwise.

“Our zoning ordinance provides for home occupations, and what Bill Mitchell does meets the letter of everything that is required to be a home occupation,” Bradley said.

Bradley went on to explain the area could not be zoned commercial because two of the four lots adjacent to Mitchell’s are only 50 feet wide.  A lot must be 100 feet wide in order to be zoned commercial.

Councilwoman Pattisue Carranza expressed the same concerns regarding the parking issue, saying she had a problem with a home occupation business needing 18 parking spaces.

Again, Mithcell explained he was the only full time resident on the four residentially zoned lots that were surrounded by businesses. Some of Mitchell’s neighbors were on hand to speak on his behalf.

The Vote

With Mitchell’s financial investment on the line and his business on hold, the council voted 4-2 to approve a conditional use, home occupation license, with Holk and Carranza voting against it.

“Initially I was against it, because I do believe that this is a stretch of home occupation,” Kennon said. “But they were perfectly willing to consider rezoning, but because of the way our ordinances are written, he can’t rezone.”