Terrie Masters, a commercial tenant in Summer Sands Condominiums on Navarre Beach, is facing a March 4 in-person hearing related to her failure to comply with a judge’s order to stop using common areas of the complex for her business.
Masters operates an indoor gift shop in one of eight mixed-use units, which allow residential or commercial tenants.
However, since 2012 she allegedly had been progressively encroaching upon the condo’s exterior common areas by living in a recreational vehicle on the property, placing an accessory building on the property from which she ran a snow cone stand, and blocking four of 16 total parking spots by placing picnic tables in the spaces – amongst other actions.
Santa Rosa County in 2020 issued her a citation for the snow cone stand structure and for not having the appropriate permit.
During a 1 p.m. online court event today, First Judicial Circuit Judge J. Scott Duncan made it clear he doesn’t want to have to go through the Contempt of Court process and prefers Masters to comply with his April 9 order, requiring she provide proof of liability insurance and remove all structures/equipment from common areas and cease using those spaces for her commercial activities.
Masters had failed to comply by the 60-day deadline; therefore, court relief was sought on behalf of other condo owners in the complex.
Now her landlords, Tom Schumack and James Wirth, who own the unit she rents, could be “on the hook” for her lack of compliance, per Judge Duncan. They and their corporation are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
“I’m in a quandary of what to do. I don’t want to go and start doing contempt hearings and threatening people with jail…I just don’t like to do it, but at the same time the property’s got to get cleaned up,” stated Judge Duncan.
Subsequently, Judge Duncan has set a March 4 in-person hearing, granting the plaintiff’s motion to show cause why the defendants should not be held to be in Contempt of Court.
Lee Strayhan, represeting the condo owners, said a laundry list of 11 items remain to be removed from the common areas. He said Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office can utilize a third party to remove those items – at the cost of the defendants.
Duncan told attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants that he hopes the issue is resolved prior to the March 4 court date and to notify him if that occurs so that he can cancel the hearing.
