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' Biloxi-Gulfport, Miss., Monday, August 3, 1981,
Pete Fountain
fences lots at
EDITI1 BIER1IORST BACK The Bay Bureau While Bay St. Louis officials tried last week to determine whether New Orleans musician Pete Fountain could legally fence his six lots at the water?s edge, his new hurricane fence grew. So did the despair of neighbors on the other side of Beach Boulevard.
Fountain bought the beach lots that adjoin the southern end of the Bay bridge after Hurricane Betsy wiped out the hamburger stand that had stood on the site for years.
Besides the water lots, the purchase included the entire stretch of land along the U.S. 90 frontage road from the bridge to Second Street.
Fountain could not be reached for comment about his new fence,
beach
Bay
and his Bay St. Louis attorney, Gerald Gex, declined to talk about it.
Other local officials said Fountain wants a fence as protection against possible liability suits. The property is a favorite parking spot for bridge fishermen, picnickers, swimmers, and beach strollers.
Barriers to stop the entry of cars onto the property are usually cut within hours of having been installed. The many ?Keep Out? signs posted over the years seldom lasted through a weekend.
About ten days ago employees of Burge Fence Co. began erecting metal posts to hold the fence. Richard Hadden, resident-owner of the Beach Boulevard mansion across
Please see FENCING, B-6
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. the way complained to his city V councilman, James Thriffiley.
\ Armed with an August 1972 or-! dinance preventing structures on j the beach, Thriffiley, accompanied
?	by Mayor Larry J. Bennett and two police officers, went to the site and stopped the fence workers.
Next day, the workers were back, with their own ammunition: a November 1972 amendment to the ordinance that exempts the j Fountain property from the prohibition against beach structures, i Thriffiley then researched the j ordinances, he said, and found that l the original had never been pub-I lished, thus questioning its legality,
I and also that a typographical error in the amendment resulted in the omission of two of the six lots from the exemption.
City attorney Joseph W. Gex was asked for his opinion on the legality of the ordinance and its amendment.
?I?m reviewing the situation now,? Gex said Thursday as the fence was growing. ?If the ordinance is valid, he would be allowed to fence a couple of the lots, but not the others."
The two lots excluded because their numbers are incorrectly shown in the ame'ndment lie in the center of the property. If the ordinance is valid, Fountain will need to take down the fence, Gex said, at least the center part.
"We?ve asked them to hold off until Tuesday's city council meeting,? Gex said. By Friday evening, however, the fence was completely installed, running from the Beach Road down to the water's edge at each end of the property, and along Beach Boulevard the entire length of the property.
Attorney William Frisbee, who
?	served aa commissioner and city clerk when the ordinance and its amendment were adopted! said that anyone who wanted to go to the trouble and expense of bringing a legal challenge of this and other ordinances related to land use could probably get them all thrown out.
?The city does not have an official map to go with its zoning code," Frisbee said. "If there?s no map, the zoning ordinances are no good."
The zoning code was revised in 1976, but "the truth is, we may not even have a legal zoning ordinance," said Frisbee, who now serves as president of the Hancock County Bar Association.
Officials who tried to halt construction of Fountain's fence or who now might want to get it torn down "can Jump up and down but I think they'll lose. All they would do is spend some more tax money on a suit and lose," Frisbee said.
The only protection against legal challenges to its ordinances is adoption of an official zoning map, Frisbee said. "The council has been told that in the past.? Bennett said he agrees with Frisbee's interpretation.
Frisbee said Fountain purchased the land with the intention of operating a hotel and possibly a marina. Instead, he bought a Biloxi hotel and abandoned those plans. He has since sold the Biloxi hotel
?	the Buena Vista.
Still, the city government amended the 1972 beach ordinance to enable fountain to develop the1 i .. site commerclally]**iVl'{like r<lhet;j beach and wouldn't.be-happy'aboutH a fence either*.but It is commercial*,' and has been domhierciaP'lttJtHfe!!^ ; ,*?? Past,?/ FrUbeeiald;i^^>J^3^^