
Belleair Beach Motel Businesses Raise Even More Curious Aspectsby Leo CoughlinBELLEAIR BEACH - The story of the motels in "non-commercial Belleair Beach" gets curiouser and curiouser - particularly in respect to one of the businesses. There are three motels. They are Belleair Beach Resort Motel at 2040 Gulf Boulevard; Belleair Beach Club, 3200 Gulf Boulevard, and Nautical Watch, 3420 Gulf Boulevard. Belleair Beach Resort Motel, listed in Florida corporation records as Belleair Beach Resort Owners Association, Inc., and Nautical Watch, which is listed as The Nautical Watch Owners Association, Inc., are both cited as "non-profit" corporations. Under what portion of the Federal Internal Revenue Code they qualify as such is unknown at this point. Where the story of the motels gets confusing is with Belleair Beach Club. An inquiry to the Pinellas County Tax Collector's Office turned up no information on any entity by that name. The inquiry did produce information on the other two businesses. But Belleair Beach Club, LLC is clearly listed in Tallahassee records among Florida corporations. A search of Tax Collector records under a different identifying signature, a parcel number, turned up the name of Carriage House Beach Resort Condo. And this in turn led to a listing by the name of C.H. Beach Resort Condominium Association, Inc. in the listing of Florida corporations. In both listings of this motel corporation which evidently has three names, the resident agent, Stan Latek, and others associated with the enterprise are identical. While Stan Latek's address is listed at the motel, 3200 Gulf Boulevard, Suite 103, the other names give an Illinois address - 15225 Poplar Creek Court, Orland, Ill., for Frank Latek, Angeline Latek and Mary Latek. According to Pinellas County Tax Collector Office's records, Belleair Beach Club turns up on the rolls with an identification to "Fifth Third Bank, Stan Latek, c/o Glenn Rasmussen Fogarty & H" with the 3200 Gulf Boulevard address. The records show that taxes amounting to $55,971.61 were paid on January 30 of this year. Nautical Watch is recorded as having a tax bill of $29,223.82 in 2008 paid in full, another bill of $4,532 for 2008 paid in full, and another 2008 tax bill of $108 paid in full. In addition, Nautical Watch is credited with a 2008 tangible personal property tax bill of $70.65 paid in full. Belleair Beach Resort also shows fully paid up tax bills, according to Pinellas records. One bill for 2008, $1,250.67 is paid in full, as is another for $190 in 2008 and a third, also in 2008, for $1,005.09. The huge disparity in tax bills paid by Belleair Beach Club and Nautical Watch compared to Belleair Beach Resort also raises questions. The non-profit status may account for this. Usually non-profit corporations are organized for the benefit or purpose of educational, charitable or religious purposes. The Internal Revenue Service lists 26 categories of non-profit status. A review of those categories does not appear to find a definition that would fit any of the three motel businesses operating in Belleair Beach which are fully open to the public and clearly are not private or otherwise restricted in commerce. What is intriguing about the motel businesses in Belleair Beach is that the city, for years, has proclaimed that there are no businesses in the city. On top of that, there is the question of non-profit status and why, and then there are the multiple names associated with at least one of the corporations. Officials at City Hall have little or no information on these commercial ventures doing business in the city and appear to have very little concern about them.
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