Posted: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:00 AM - 16,481 Readers

By: Shelton Green

Thursday night the Jonestown City Council amended a month old ordinance which at first prohibited boats from being within 750-feet of the shoreline. Boats can now move within that space with no worries but the changes may not be enough to keep Jonestown out of court.
 
KVUE News has learned that the owner of Just For Fun boat rentals has hired attorneys to look into whether or not the city of Jonestown has overstepped its bounds with new ordinances regarding what boats can and cannot do in Devil’s Cove.
 
Pete Clark with Just for Fun says the state of Texas calls the shots when it comes to Lake Travis because he says its public water.
 
“Boating laws are typically something that's reserved for the state”, said Clark.
 
“We have a city attorney who certainly researched these and looked at these relative to what other cities have done, what other communities around lakes have done and felt that these ordinances were valid ordinances.
 
The city of Jonestown adopted a noise ordinance for Devil’s Cove similar to the city of Austin’s. Boaters are also not allowed to tie to up private property nor can they come within 100-feet of a private boat dock in Devil’s Cove. No party boats are allowed in the Cove and no more than 5-boats can tie up together in Devil’s Cove at one time.
 
“You get long tie-lines in there it gets hard to navigate especially as the cove gets narrower and narrower”, added Nichols.
 
“We believe that the city of Jonestown has overstepped their bounds with this ordinance. We make our living in the boating industry and anything that impairs that industry is bad for boating”, added Clark.
 
Right now the city of Jonestown’s boat officer is writing warnings and it’s not clear if or when that will change.