PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Each year, a Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) bus is wrapped to celebrate Pride over the summer months. However, this year, that isn't happening. It's because of a newly passed Florida law that goes into effect on July 1.
House Bill 1301 dictates how public transit authorities can use their funds to decorate their buses. This bill doesn't only impact the buses in Pinellas County and Pride bus wraps; it impacts every bus system in the state and every celebratory or commemorative bus wrap that is typically displayed.
"As a condition of receiving funds from the department, a public transit provider may not expend department funds for marketing or advertising activities, including any wrap, tinting, paint, or other medium displayed, attached, or affixed on a bus, commercial motor vehicle, or motor vehicle that is owned, leased, or operated by the public transit provider," the bill text reads, in part.
Vehicles are limited to displaying a brand or logo of the public transit provider, the official seal of the government entity or a state agency announcement. The Department of Transportation will come out with guidelines for the marketing or advertising activities allowed under the law, according to the law.
For PSTA, Pride is the first bus wrap impacted by this bill's effective date. The board isn't sure how this bill will impact them and put the wrap on pause until they hear more from the Florida Department of Transportation.
"The bus wraps are actually part of a partnership that we have with our advertising agency that handles all of our ads. So those wraps are included, complimentary as part of the contract. So there's no charge at all to PSTA, or to the taxpayers," said Gina Driscoll, the PSTA board chairwoman.
While PSTA seemingly isn't going against this bill's requirements, the board has decided to wait until FDOT shares its guidelines later this summer.
"We are not going to be doing the bus wraps for pride," Driscoll said. "We just really have to hold off to see what the Florida Department of Transportation decides as far as the rules around that. We want to make sure that we're always supported that can have the community but also that we're always complying with state law."
Dr. Byron Green-Calisch is the president of the board of directors for St. Pete Pride. He said it's new laws like this that make Pride all the more important in local communities.
"This is a reminder, very frankly, of why we are still needed in this space," Green-Calisch said. "That Pride is more important now than ever, as we recognize the vandalism or these small slights that erase Pride from the visual conversation.
"There are people that don't want us to be here, like very clearly very, very aggressively, and making note making their thoughts and desires known. It's been really hard here in the state of Florida," he continued.
PSTA has been wrapping buses since 2016 and has been participating in the Pride Parade in downtown St. Pete for more than 10 years.
The Martin Luther King Jr. and Veteran's Day bus wraps are also impacted by this new law. In the past, PSTA has wrapped buses for Juneteenth. They were done as an artist contest. The board decided before the legislation was introduced that they were not going to do a Juneteenth bus wrap this year.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.