Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...premises, to wit: a place or building which is visited to by persons for the purpose of unlawfully using, keeping, selling, and/or delivering controlled substances in violation of Chapter 893, F.S., the same being in violation of: a. Florida Statute 823.10 and Florida Statute 561.29(1)(c); b....

...any place where any law of the state is violated, shall be deemed guilty of maintaining a nuisance, and the building, erection, place, tent or booth and the furniture, fixtures and contents are declared a nuisance. All such places or persons shall be abated or enjoined as provided in §§ 60.05 and 60.06." Fla. Stat. § 823.10, F.S.A., reads as follows: "Any store, shop, warehouse, dwelling house, building, vehicle, ship, boat, vessel, aircraft, or any place whatever, which is visited by narcotic or other drug users for the purpose of unlawfully using hallucinoge...

...404, the Florida Drug Abuse *884 Law; or Ch. 500, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Law. It is also alleged that this conduct is a public nuisance and will persist in the future unless abated by this Court. Appellants first say that Fla. Stat. §§ 60.05, 823.05 and 823.10, F.S.A., quoted above, do not satisfy constitutional requirements of due process because they are not sufficiently explicit in their description of the act, conduct, or conditions required or forbidden and do not describe the elements of the offense with reasonable certainty....

...Allen, 422 F.2d 1158 (5th Cir., 1970).) The validity of the statutes under attack is sustained by these authorities, for men of common intelligence would understand the evil sought to be remedied by the statutory scheme. Appellants also say that a nuisance as defined in Fla. Stat. § 823.10, F.S.A., quoted above, cannot be enjoined through the procedure set forth in Fla. Stat. § 60.05, F.S.A., as the latter statute is applicable only to actions arising under Fla. Stat. § 823.05, F.S.A. It was not necessary for Fla. *885 Stat. § 823.10, F.S.A., to describe the specific machinery for enforcement, as it existed judicially....

...gislature to cure that evil. Brown v. Griffin, 229 So.2d 225 (Fla. 1969). The intent of the Legislature is apparent from the nuisance abatement scheme prescribed in the statutes quoted above. This intent was that the nuisance described in Fla. Stat. § 823.10, F.S.A....

...There is no requirement that the owners have knowledge — express or implied — that the law is being violated. I can see no way an innocent owner can defend such an action. Moreover, and for the same reasons above, I think the quoted statutes, viz.: Secs. 823.05 and 823.10 F.S.A....

...Sections 561.29(1)(a) and (c), Florida Statutes (1989), provide in pertinent part that an alcoholic beverage license may be suspended when the licensee or its employees permit another on the licensed premises to violate any of the laws of this state, or when the licensee maintains a nuisance on the licensed premises. Section 823.10, Florida Statutes (1989), provides in pertinent part that any building that is visited by persons for the purpose of unlawfully using, selling or delivering controlled substances shall be deemed a public nuisance....

KELLY, Judge. Barbara Anne Ratliff appeals the judgment and sentence imposed following her no contest plea to keeping or maintaining a public nuisance in violation of section 823.10, Florida Statutes (2008). 1 Because Ratliffs conduct did not violate the portion *919 of section 823.10 that criminalizes maintaining a public nuisance, we reverse. The State charged Ratliff with keeping or maintaining a “dwelling/structure” used for selling, distributing, or ingesting illegal substances in violation of section 823.10, which provides: (1) Any store, shop, warehouse, dwelling house, building, structure, vehicle, ship, boat, vessel, or aircraft, or any place whatever, which is visited by persons for the purpose of unlawfully using any substance contro...

...(2) Any proceeding brought under this section shall be governed by chapter 60. (Emphasis supplied). Ratliff moved to strike or dismiss the information 2 claiming that the information failed to state a crime because a dwelling is specifically excluded from the part of section 823.10 which criminalizes the maintaining of a public nuisance....

...Further, each statute “must be read as a whole with meaning ascribed to every portion and due regard given to the semantic and contextual interrelationship between its parts.” Id. (quoting Dept. of Envtl. Prot. v. ContractPoint Fla. Parks, LLC, 986 So.2d 1260, 1265 (Fla.2008)). The second portion of section 823.10(1), which criminalizes keeping or maintaining a public nuisance, mentions only a “warehouse, structure, or building,” while the first portion of the statute, which explains what constitutes a “public nuisance,” lists “store,...

...oked. Of the 11 counts which the hearing officer found to be supported by competent evidence, Count 1 alleged that appellants, through their employees, violated section 561.29(l)(c), Florida Statutes, by maintaining a public nuisance in violation of section 823.10, Florida Statutes....