TALLAHASSEE — An exclusive Palm Beach yacht club on Tuesday released its membership list in a first-of-its-kind attempt to convince the state that Jews, single women and Hispanics can belong.
The private Sailfish Club had already acknowledged having no blacks as members.
Faced with losing their state lease for docks if they did not show evidence of nondiscrimination, club officials also provided the club’s new membership application form.
It no longer asks for “church affiliation” or the wife’s maiden name, presumably a clue to ethnic background.
The club “respectfully suggests that appropriate steps have been taken,” attorney Richard Brightman said in a letter submitted on Tuesday to Attorney General Bob Butterworth.
For the yacht club world, a bastion of exclusivity, it was a sign that the pressure to be politically correct can no longer be kept at bay — at least in Florida.
Dozens of yacht clubs besides the Sailfish Club could face similar scrutiny.
Since 1987, the state, upon the initiative of Butterworth, has required yacht clubs leasing state land to promise in their lease not to exclude members based on “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicap or marital status.”
Previously, the wall of privilege around these clubs had been impossible for some to breach. Three years ago, Palm Beach accountant Richard Rampell was told by a club member that his longstanding application with the Sailfish Club would never be accepted because he is Jewish.
“What needs to be done is change the atmosphere so that it is not acceptable to be a bigot,” Rampell said on Tuesday.
The Sailfish Club became the initial test case, because there were public complaints about discrimination there. For the past two years, the club stonewalled the attorney general’s request for proof of nondiscriminatory membership policies.
“We asked them for information, and basically they told us to butt out,” Butterworth said. “In essence, they were snubbing their nose (at us).”
Late last month, Sailfish Club President George Slayton’s answer to inquiries was a statement that the club “does not discriminate.”
Yet the club now is suddenly making concessions in order to save a very basic yachting accessory — dock space.
All 100,000 square feet of the club’s docks sit on state-owned submerged lands, in this case the Intracoastal Waterway.
The club’s $8,022 annual lease of those lands will be up for consideration on Thursday by Gov. Lawton Chiles and the six-member Cabinet, which includes Butterworth. A recommendation not to renew the lease has already been made by the state Department of Environmental Protection. Five votes of approval must be cast, more than a simple majority, in order to renew the lease.
An aide to Butterworth who met privately on Tuesday with the club’s attorney and several members said it is not clear yet that the Sailfish Club has provided sufficient evidence of a change of heart.
Forty-one yacht clubs besides the Sailfish Club — including the Jockey Club Marina and Coral Reef Yacht Club, both in Miami — also have nondiscriminatory clauses in their leases.
In 1998, another 54 yacht clubs, whose old leases had been grandfathered in, probably will be forced to include the same nondiscriminatory clause. They include the Lauderdale Yacht Club and Coral Ridge Yacht Club, both in Fort Lauderdale, and the Royal Palm Yacht Club in Boca Raton.
–Staff Writer Chele Caughron contributed to this report.
SOME MEMBERS
The Sailfish Club membership includes many well-known and influential members of the community. A list of some of the better-known members:
— Alan Ciklin: Prominent Palm Beach County real estate lawyer.
— Dexter Coffin Jr.: Son of the inventor of the flow-through tea bag.
— Alex Dreyfoos Jr.: President, Photo Electronics Corp.; founder of the Palm Beach County Council of the Arts and founder and chairman of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.
— E. Llwyd Ecclestone Jr.: Prominent developer and chairman, National Investment Co. Developer of PGA National community and several other country club communities.
— Alfonso Fanjul Jr., Alexander Fanjul, Jose Pepe Fanjul: Leaders in the Florida sugar industry and owners of Flo-Sun Inc.
— James R. Knott: Retired Palm Beach County circuit judge and well-known historian and storyteller.
— Lake Lytal Jr.: Prominent lawyer and son of former County Commissioner Lake Lytal.
— Jon Moyle: Member of the state Board of Regents and prominent West Palm Beach lawyer.
— John H. Perry Jr.: Jupiter businessman who is a former publisher, cable magnate and owner of a successful ocean engineering firm.
— Henry A. Perry: President of Perry Companies, an organization with various subsidiaries, including Perry Technologies and Perry Offshore.
— Joseph Testa: Co-owner with his brother of Testa’s Restaurant in Palm Beach.
