ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – This weekend might present the first test to the city’s ban on parking boat trailers along Alabama 161. In a work session Tuesday councilmembers discussed getting signs up to halt the parking.

“We talked about trying to get it done before the first wave of spring break boaters which I think you’re going to see this weekend,” Councilwoman Pattisue Simpson said. “This weekend is going to be nice weather and if you have a boat in North Baldwin County, you may be down here.”

Because of a lack of parking at the state’s launch at Cotton Bayou, boaters in the past have pulled trailers along the west side of the roadway and walked across the road to their boats.

Residents have complained in the past of boaters using their docks to board launched boats and there have also been complaints about vandalism and litter on private properties in the area.

 “At this point you just can’t accommodate everybody that wants to put a boat in the water,” Mayor Tony Kennon said. “If the state wants to build a launch, they can build a launch. If they don’t, we can’t put everybody in the water. There’s no way.”

Parking boats at City Hall, an option that has been suggested in the past, isn’t an answer that Kennon likes.

“I just don’t know if we want to start parking people on City Hall property on weekends,” he said. “I just don’t know what problems we might have from drinking, trash, fish carcasses. I can see people out there cleaning fish.

“I have some concerns about the chaos of 50 to 75 boats and trailers trying to park behind us.”

At a City Council work session in January citizens spoke out about parking problems at the state’s Cotton Bayou launch near the intersection of Alabama 161 and Alabama 182 (beach road) in Orange Beach. Cotton Bayou residents say the heavy boat and personal watercraft traffic is becoming increasingly dangerous in their “front yards.”

The relief could come in the old proposal for a boat launch on Old River just east of the Caribe resort. Resident Tem Blalock said at the January meeting the state-owned property has been approved for a launch since 1979, but opposition from Ono Island residents has prevented its construction.

The latest effort in 2007 was nixed by the Baldwin County Commission. The launch is currently on the city’s wish list as part of the National Resource Damage Assessment grants through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Department of Community Development Director Kit Alexander said plans are in the works to get signs up in the area. Temporary signs used on Canal Road during the Festival of Art will be used for now, along with a new digital sign recently purchased by the city.

“Chief (Billy) Wilkins has gone out and taken a look at the rights of way,” Alexander said. “He has determined that we should have no parking signs between Catman Trail and 182. He also came up, and I thought that was impressive for a police chief to be thinking aesthetics, that it would be better if we put no parking signs on our pretty green light poles as opposed to having separate, no parking signs on the side of the road.”

Alexander is studying the plan and checking with the Alabama Department of Transportation and Baldwin EMC about the possibility of placing the signs on light poles.