Councilman Jack Kelly said he expects firefighters and other groups that routinely solicit money on the roadsides will protest the proposed rule when it is brought up for first reading.
Discussion of the ban began after individuals dressed in military uniforms began appearing on Treasure Coast roads collecting for veterans causes. A lengthy investigation by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers of the groups — and others— showed that in some cases only a portion of the money collected actually benefited veterans or their families.
Veterans groups along the Treasure Coast expressed dismay that the uniformed solicitors were, in many cases, not veterans at all. They also noted that much of the money collected went out of the area, sometimes out of the state, and operators of the collection drives were paying themselves substantial salaries from money intended for veterans.
But the ordinance being considered by the three St. Lucie County government bodies makes no mention of veterans or other specific groups. It is based on the recommendations of St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara that a policy be the same for all groups and address the safety issues of having solicitors standing around busy roads. The proposed Port St. Lucie ordinance presented Monday night addresses the safety issues only, Assistant City Attorney Gabrielle Taylor said.
“My goal is that there would be a unified ordinance for St. Lucie County, Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce,” County Commissioner Tod Mowery said on Tuesday. “The ordinance has not been presented to the county commission and we have not formally discussed it, so I don’t know what will happen to it when it is presented.”
Public safety is the main issue, Mowery said, because there have been a number of accidents involving people standing in the median or along the roads. He said the ordinance will have to be a blanket ban on all solicitations for it to be enforceable.
Fort Pierce Mayor Bon Benton said City Police Chief Sean Baldwin will present the proposed unified ordinance at a Fort Pierce City Commission workshop the within the next three weeks.
“I am for it, and I believe the whole commission is on board,” Benton said.
Catherine La Valle, vice chair of the United Veterans of St. Lucie County, which has advocated passing the law, said she is pleased Port St. Lucie has taken the lead on this issue.
Staff writer Christin Erazo contributed to this report.

A bill that would ban “Internet cafes” such as the one run by Allied Veterans of the World and Affiliates in Vero Beach is “dead in the Senate,” according to a key committee chair.

Although the Allied group says its operation raises money for veterans, the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling says it is nothing more than a location for “convenience gambling.”

State Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, chairwoman of the Commerce and Tourism Committee, said no action will be taken against the cafes this year, but that doesn’t mean the proposal will not be back in the next session.

Allied operates an Internet cafe in a storefront in Vero Beach. Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers reported last month on drastically different financial figures reported by St. Augustine-based Allied Veterans in the past two years — from a $4,331 deficit reported to the Internal Revenue Service in 2009 to more than $1 million donated to veterans causes in fall 2010.

Bills proposed by State Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, in the House and Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Gainesville, in the Senate, would outlaw the use of simulated gambling devices like the machines used by Allied Veterans to run what it terms a “sweepstakes” contest in its Internet cafes in Florida. The bill has the backing of the Florida Sheriffs Association, the Florida Chiefs of Police and several other law enforcement organizations.

Detert said the bill is not being killed because it is a bad bill but because her committee has eight proposed changes to Florida law dealing with gambling. She said her committee staff has not calculated the impact of the several proposals on the state’s pari-mutuel industry and the compact with the Seminole Tribe.

“So, we aren’t doing any gambling bills in the Senate this year,” Detert said. “I have asked my staff to do a study over the summer, compare all the measures, examine the situation and make recommendations about a proper course of action.”

Oelrich and Plakon have both expressed dismay that their measure will not come to a vote during this session.

Allied Veterans of the World and Affiliates operates at least 39 Internet Cafes around the state. There are an estimated 500 similar operations in the state.

Usually located in storefronts in strip malls, each affiliate offers a number of computers displaying games of several sorts and allowing access to the Internet. Customers can be given 100 free minutes to use, after which they buy minutes. The minutes are recorded on a card that the customer uses in the computers to learn if they have won a prize of up to $5,000 in a sweepstakes.

Allied said it donates a portion of the money left after paying prize winners and operating expenses to veterans charities.

What amount actually goes to veteran and other projects is unclear from Allied records. According to its IRS form 990s, which are the income tax reports for nonprofits, in 2009, which is the last year they are available, Allied reported operating at a deficit but handed out some $2.5 million to various groups.

Kelly Mathis, Allied attorney and registered agent, said the organization has now given out some $5 million. But there is no evidence as to how much the organization took in through is Internet cafes.

Many law enforcement agencies contend that Allied and similar operations are really gambling. Allied cafes have been shut down in Pinellas and Manatee counties.

Authorities in Marion County have seized computers and arrested employees in about 20 locations in that county, including an Allied Veterans site. Seminole County has adopted an ordinance closing them down, but Allied went to federal court and secured a temporary injunction staying the action. The injunction was issued earlier this year but no hearing has been held on the matter.

Last year, Allied sought to get a statewide injunction but the Tallahassee court told them they had to sue in each county in which they have an affiliate.

Mathis said Allied’s games are legal, provide jobs, raise money for charities and should not be shut down.

Allied spokesmen did not return calls seeking for comment.

But the Senate action, while dooming the bills this session, does not mean there will not be change after the staff study ordered by Detert.

Detert said she does not know what recommendations will emerge from the study.

A study of the Internet cafes, adult amusement arcades and electronic game promotions for the state Senate in November 2008 concluded that patrons of the games and cafes could be cheated and that the laws needed to be amended to clarify what constitutes gambling. Several court rulings on the subject have also said the laws need to be amended.

Detert also said the adult arcades and Internet cafes might have become the new bingo parlors for the elderly in the state.

“I’m not sure what would happen if we closed them down, where would the elderly go?” Detert said.

Critics, including Plakon, point out the Internet cafes have created problems for communities where they are located and, because they sometimes have large amounts of cash on hand, become targets for criminals.

Last week, there was a shoot-out at the Allied Veterans Affiliate in Apopka. Three armed men entered the establishment, whose manager had testified before the Seminole County Commission that his business grossed $100,000 a week, and confronted a security guard with drawn guns. The security guard opened fire with his weapon, hitting one of the gunmen. They all fled, eventually throwing the body of the man who had been shot and killed onto the roadside.

It was the third attempted robbery of an Allied Veterans site this year, according to Plakon staffers.

Incidents like that have Plakon and others concerned. His bill is moving through the House committees, but without a companion Senate bill being passed, it will not become law.

That won’t be until at least next year. Still, Detert said she is familiar with Allied Veterans of the World and Affiliates.

“They are very wealthy and give only a little money to veterans,” she said. “I have told them to enjoy this year while we study the laws because they could be in danger of being out of business next year.”

How Allied Vets is organized
Allied Veterans of the World and Affiliates, Inc., is a 501c19 organization, which means most of its membership must be veterans or veteran-related, and no part of the money raised can be used to the benefit of any member or shareholder. It is based in St. Augustine and has branches or affiliates scattered throughout Florida from Jacksonville to Naples.
The organization conducts an electronic sweepstakes through sales of Internet time to clients of its affiliates.
Jerry Bass, national commander, said the operation is like the sweepstakes conducted by McDonald’s. But the similarity ends there, while McDonald’s Restaurants are franchise operations, Bass said all of the affiliates are owned by the parent company which lists St. Augustine as its Florida headquarters.
Allied Veterans of the World and Affiliates is not confined to Florida. It also operates in North and South Carolina and Arkansas.

Thanks to a new state law, camouflage-garbed solicitors collecting for groups “helping” veterans could be arrested unless they can show proof they really are veterans or active duty personnel.

Treasure Coast law enforcement agencies are willing to enforce the new state statute, which took effect in October and makes it a third-degree felony for anyone to wear all or parts of a military uniform if they didn’t serve.

The solicitors carrying plastic buckets and American flags have attracted the ire of local veterans organizations, and are part of a larger problem revealed in a five-month investigation by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. The investigation showed many organizations are soliciting money for veterans’ causes but are keeping large portions of the money or spending large portions of it on administrative or fundraising costs.

Meanwhile, most local governments have banned roadside solicitation — though Port St. Lucie and Vero Beach do not.

The uniformed collectors identified on the Treasure Coast belong to The Veterans Support Organization of Warwick, R.I., and Fort Lauderdale, or the Disabled Veterans Foundation of Plantation. Collectively, they raised $2.8 million of the $472 million raised by 121 organizations surveyed in the investigation.

St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Garry Wilson said so far, St. Lucie County deputies have not found any solicitors who couldn’t prove they are veterans.

“We have been enforcing the new law since it came out,” Wilson said. “Our deputies have been stepping out with these solicitors whenever they see them and asking for some proof of their military status. ”

Law enforcement agencies generally welcome the new law.

“We will enforce the state law,” said Terry Nolan, legal adviser for the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. “Our department has been researching this problem for about two years now. The new law will help us.”

Nolan said charities formed under the 501c3 section of the Internal Revenue statutes are allowed to solicit money on public rights-of-way provided they have a permit from the government jurisdiction in which they seek to raise money. The impact of the requirement is that no group can legally ask for money on Martin County roads because neither the county nor the city of Stuart will issue permits.

Stuart Police Chief Edward Morley said the city will not issue a permit to solicit on the roads because it constitutes a traffic hazard. He said any group seeking such a city permit must first obtain one from the Florida Department of Transportation.

Morley’s department did an investigation of the Veterans Service Organization after receiving complaints two years ago. Last December, Sgt. Martin Jacobson, then spokesman for the department, said they found that most of the solicitors were not veterans and came from day labor firms. The solicitors told his investigators, Jacobson said, that they received 30 percent of everything they collected, were given the camouflage clothing but required to buy their hats and boots. On the basis of that study, the Stuart Department has refused to sanction roadside collections.

Sebastian City Councilwoman Andrea Coy said other governments should follow her city’s lead in banning donations along city streets.

Coy, a former U.S. Army master sergeant and a member of the Sebastian Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion, said the Sebastian City Council’s decision late last year to prohibit on-street solicitation was sparked by concerns about outside groups purportedly raising money for veterans soliciting on the streets.

Coy said local veterans’ groups are better to donate to instead of the out-of-town organizations. In addition, Coy said banning on-street solicitation is a safety issue.

Indian River County already bars anyone from soliciting on a public road without a permit. There have been no permits issued, but also no complaints, according to Assistant Indian River County Attorney Bill DeBraal.

But the Indian River Veterans Council wants all local governments to bar the uniformed collectors. Marty Zickert, one of the 17 council members, says his organization is affronted by people using the uniform to beg for money. The council wants the solicitors barred from collecting anywhere in the county.

County Commissioner Joe Flescher said he has been working with the Veterans’ Council for weeks on how to allow legitimate veteran groups to solicit public donations to “help the heroes” without letting non-veterans in faux military garb “piratize” unsuspecting donors.

“It’s difficult,” he said. “As a county, we can’t pass an ordinance saying we’ll allow this group, but not that group. … It’s nearly impossible, but that’s where creativity prevails.”

He said he and some leading veterans are approaching individual businesses, where groups set up to solicit money, and educating the management about which groups are legitimate. That way, he said, the businesses can withhold permission from questionable groups.

And on the public right of way, he said, he has asked veterans to call the Sheriff’s Office when they see someone in a faux uniform seeking money from motorists.

Vero Beach Acting City Attorney Wayne Coment said charitable and religious organizations are allowed to solicit on city right-of-ways and medians in Vero Beach.

Vero Beach Deputy Chief David Currey, however, said some of these groups have moved on after being told they cannot impede traffic by soliciting in the streets.

Vero Beach Mayor Jay Kramer said if something more is done to prohibit the solicitors he would like to see the effort be a coordinated one between the counties and the various municipalities so the problem is just not pushed from one jurisdiction to another one.

In St. Lucie County, Wilson said, “We are concerned about any type of roadside solicitation because of the safety issues. These veterans groups just seem to be the most numerous right now.”

St. Lucie County Attorney Dan McIntyre said it would be difficult to enact an ordinance to eliminate such activity without having the cities and state on board. The county only has jurisdiction over unincorporated county roads.

The camouflaged-dressed solicitors have been particularly active in Port St. Lucie along U.S. 1 and Port St. Lucie Boulevard in the past two months.

Port St. Lucie City Manager Jerry Bentrott said he’s not aware of the concern and has not been directed by City Council to

look into the matter.

“It might be something that we maybe take a look at,” Bentrott said.

Nolan said solicitors like to work along major roads and intersections because the high volume of traffic ensure a good take.

“People drive up, see the collector in uniform and give money,” he said. “There isn’t time for them to engage the solicitor because someone behind you wants to move on.”

Jim Harpring, legal adviser to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, said he was not aware of any brush with shady vet groups, outside the Veterans Council’s own concerns.

Harpring said state law bars anyone impersonating a veteran, via the uniform, while soliciting funds. He said the challenge facing law enforcement is getting proof of a solicitor’s true status.

Eric Pfahler, Henry Stephens and Ed Bierschenk contributed to this report.

FORT PIERCE — One organization trying to collect money for veterans while standing on public roadways has been banned from the city, Fort Pierce Police Department Capt. Gregg Kirk said Thursday, but a second has been permitted.

“The Veterans Service Organization out of Fort Lauderdale and Warwick, R.I., has been banned because not all of their collectors are veterans,” said Kirk. “These solicitors are like locusts. They invade your city, take the money and leave.”

But a second group, the Disabled Veterans Foundation of Plantation, will be allowed to collect money because all of their representatives can prove their military service.

Kirk said his department has been dealing with the roadside collectors for several years, but that passage of a new state law that took effect last October gave them a tool to exercise a measure of control.

That new law says that collectors in uniform must be actual veterans. A second, existing state law calls for posting a $1 million bond, ensuring that all solicitors are adults who have their discharge papers to prove military service, and have proper signs to allow the public to know what is going on.

“As a veteran of the Army paratroops, I am affronted by people in what appear to be uniforms begging for money on the street,” said Kirk. He recounted a confrontation with one uniformed solicitor. “He had a small tag in his buttonhole which said ‘civilian.’ He tried to say that made him legal, but I told him that to the motoring public, he appeared to be a soldier and that was wrong.”

Kirk said officers from all St. Lucie County law enforcement agencies are now applying the laws to control solicitations.

The legislature ought to look into abuses committed by charities ostensibly “helping” veterans and their families, State Rep. William Snyder said.

“I am taking this to the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and we will see what can be done,” said Snyder, R-Stuart.

Snyder said he was unaware that many veterans organizations are using large amounts of the money they collect for administrative or fundraising costs until he read Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers’ investigation into the issue.

The five-month investigation first published on TCPalm.com last Friday showed 121 organizations registered to collect money in Florida collected more than $472 million and spent $439 million. But of the money spent only 66 percent went to veterans.

The percentage would only get a “D” rating from most of the groups that monitor charitable activity.

“I think this is despicable,” Snyder said. “I have two sons in the Marines, and I don’t like these people trading on them.”

Not all Treasure Coast state legislators agree the legislature should consider taking action. But all of them say they are upset with what happens to money collected for veterans.

State Senator Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said he doesn’t think the legislature should be trying to micromanage charities by prescribing how much money should go to fundraising, administration and programs.

“The Amish have a custom called ‘shunning,’ which they use for someone who has gone against community principles. They just don’t associate or communicate with those people and soon the person being shunned goes away,” Negron said. “I think that is what we ought to be doing to those solicitors. Don’t give them money and they will go away.”

State Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Port St. Lucie, said she has great concern about people standing on street corners begging money for any cause. But she said the report on veterans charities caused her “great distress.

“The American people are very generous in their support of our troops and it is sickening to see someone taking advantage of that generosity,” said Harrell, who husband was an Army doctor in Vietnam during the war.

But Harrell said the solicitors on the street corners are just a small part of the problem, with many organizations raising funds via phone banks, direct mail and over the Internet.

“Those operations concern me,” she said.

Despite her misgivings, Harrell said she believes the resolution of the problem will have to come at the federal level. She said three Supreme Court rulings that say fundraisers are protected under the First Amendment make it difficult for states to regulate the operations of the various groups.

State Rep. Steve Perman, D-Boca Raton, who representatives portions of Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties, said transparency is needed, that articles such as the veterans investigation help, and that people must be wary about who they give money to.

“The collectors are preying upon people’s emotions,” Perman said. “People are good-hearted and want to help. It is a shame there are predatory groups out there taking advantage of them.”

State Rep. Debbie Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, vice chair of the community and military affairs subcommittee, said the legislature last year passed a law banning people from pretending to be veterans if they didn’t serve. But beyond that much of the onus is on donors.

“Protecting the public from unscrupulous solicitations is very important to me and it is particularly troubling when groups use any type of false tactics to secure donations,” she said. “Last year, the Legislature passed a law to specifically prohibit a person from falsely claiming they are a member of the military to solicit donations.

“It is important for donors to do their homework and make sure the dollars they give are used according to their wishes. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is a great resource for finding out more about charities.”

Organizations that collect money for veterans and active-duty military people, but then keep much of it, should not be able to hide behind the First Amendment, said U.S. Rep. Bill Posey.

Posey, R-Melbourne, made that comment Tuesday after reading the findings of a five-month investigation by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers into fundraising practices of 121 organizations collecting money in Florida ostensibly for veterans and their families. The investigation revealed that the groups reported raising a total $472 million, of which they spent $439 million. Of those total expenditures, 66 percent went to aid veterans and active duty military personnel or their families, according to the data the groups reported to the IRS.

The charities did nothing illegal, because three Supreme Court rulings have said soliciting for charities is covered under the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee.

Days after the investigation was published, the Treasure Coast’s federal lawmakers and their offices said they’re aware of the situation and concerned.

“I commend Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers for its service to the public in conducting this investigation,” Posey said. “While there are many well-meaning charities that raise money for veterans and other important causes, there are some organizations that have other motives. And despite the constraints of federal laws protecting free speech, those groups suspected of wrongdoing should be held accountable if not by law enforcement, then by folks in the news media and the public at large. Informing the public is a critical step in tackling this problem.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, said his office is monitoring the situation.

“I appreciate this investigation, because the best way to stop these bad actors is to expose them and bring this information to the public light,” Rooney said. “Although charitable organizations must register with the state, my office is closely monitoring this issue, and we’re looking for potential solutions at the federal level. We will continue aggressive oversight of these organizations.”

He also said he’s impressed with the generosity of the American people.

“Despite difficult economic times, the American people continue to show their generosity with an outpouring of support for our nation’s veterans,” Rooney said. “Unfortunately, we’re learning that many of the groups who solicit donations in the name of veterans are giving very little back to the men and women who wore the uniform.”

Wearing a military uniform if you are not actually in the military is a violation of the law, Rooney said. Soliciting in uniform is also a violation, he added. Anyone soliciting while wearing a uniform is probably not a veteran or in the military, he said.

“One hates to think that someone would use veterans to rip people off. But it happens,” said Bryan Gulley, press secretary to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida. “That’s why you have to check any charity out. If you suspect anything, report it to the state authorities who regulate charities.”