Roughly half of all small businesses in the United States are home-based businesses. For Floridians, it has not always been easy to know whether it is legal to run simple businesses, like baking cookies or selling hand-crafted items, from your home. But that will soon change if Gov. DeSantis signs into law two recent reforms that passed the Florida Legislature.
Lizette Galdames knows how badly these reforms are needed. When her husband suffered a stroke a few years ago, she did not know what she was going to do until she sold her homemade jams and preserves at South Florida farmers’ markets. And she never stopped.
I m so happy for Pensacola and Gulf Breeze, state Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, said early Friday morning, moments after the bridge opened. This is just in time for Memorial Day weekend.
The limited reopening comes a few days before the Florida Department of Transportation s Memorial Day week estimate and allows for the large crowds anticipated this weekend to use the bridge and bring traffic back through Gulf Breeze for the first time since fall.
As of Friday afternoon, Pensacola Police Department spokesman Mike Wood and Gulf Breeze Police Chief Rick Hawthorne said there hadn t been any issues with traffic on the bridge as motorists largely stuck to the speed limit and drove cautiously.
Nearly 1,000 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits saying Skanska was negligent in its actions before the hurricane because it didn t follow its own hurricane plan to move the barges to a safe location. Those cases are ongoing in state and federal court.
Consistent with the requirements within the construction contract with Skanska, FDOT will continue to withhold payments of $35,000 per day until four lanes of traffic are restored to the entire southbound span of the Pensacola Bay Bridge.
During the bridge outage, the Garcon Point Bridge has served as the primary detour for traffic between Pensacola and Gulf Breeze. Gov. Ron DeSantis has kept the toll on that bridge lifted since then.
/
Florida lawmakers returned to Tallahassee on Monday, for a special session to consider a gaming deal between the state and the Seminole Tribe. WUWF’s Dave Dunwoody recently spoke with state Rep. Michelle Salzman on that, and her first regular session in office.
The 30-year compact would expand gambling and legalize sports betting in the nation’s third most populous state. DeSantis said at the signing last month that the agreement, if passed, would allow the state to capitalize on internet sport betting, which is already underway with increasing popularity.
“Sports betting really is going on already,” contended the governor. “Why don’t we come together, put some structure to this, and let it be done in a way where the tribe is in control of the sports, and the state is able to share with some generous revenue payments.”