ATLANTA — Georgia’s top-court judges heard arguments Monday on whether or not Glynn County can shut down a St. Simons Island beach house that has been the site of wild parties for years.
Attorneys for the county and for Lee and Jeff Burton, who own the house, took turns telling the Supreme Court justices what was wrong with a trial judge’s decision about whether there were too many parties at the eight-bedroom, eight-bath vacation-rental house in the East Beach neighborhood.
The judge ruled that the county ordinance allows parties that are an “accessory use” but that the number of parties the Burtons’ tenants have been holding is excessive. However, he declined to say where the line is drawn for when the frequency is too many, telling the county commission to do it instead.
Jason Tate, the Burtons’ lawyer, argued that the ordinance doesn’t specify a limit on the size or frequency of parties, leaving the meaning unconstitutionally vague.
“It left us to wonder when a permissible ‘accessory use’ became an impermissible use,” he said.
Arguing for the county, attorney Bradley Watkins said five wedding parties in five weekends last March was clearly over the line.
“This was a highly successful and profitable business,” he told the justices. “... It destroyed the residential character of East Beach.”
The Burtons ran ads online and in printed publications marketing the house as the premier venue for wedding parties. It resulted in large crowds, noisy bands and rowdy guests roughly every other weekend for the past three years, Watkins said.
The questions from Justice David Nahmias and Justice Carol Hunstein suggested they felt the county needed to be more specific in its ordinance. The other justices didn’t offer any clues as to their thinking on the case.
In three or four months, the court will release its decision.