Putting More Sunshine in The Sunshine State

State Sen. Darren Soto of Orlando has come up with an economic winner for Florida.  Permanent Daylight Savings Time.  He has filed a bill in the state legislature to make the change.  His office is looking for a State House of Representatives sponsor for the bill. 

The bill is being called the “Sunshine Protection Act.”  For a state that derives a great deal of its annual revenue from tourism, it sounds like a great idea. 

The beginning part reads:
“An act relating to daylight saving time; providing a  short title; exempting the State of Florida and its political subdivisions from daylight saving time;  requiring that the state and all of its political  subdivisions observe standard time; authorizing each  district school board to adjust school start times due  to the exemption from daylight saving time;  authorizing the Department of Agriculture and Consumer  Services to study adjustments in standard agricultural  practices due to the exemption from daylight saving time; providing an effective date.”

The full text of the bill can be found http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2013/0382/BillText/Filed/PDF 

Permanent daylight time would provide more than just time for tourists to be outside enjoying our state.  It would give all of us a little more sunshine from November to March.  More time for the beach, for golf and tennis and boating, for after school activities, and just in general enjoying the great outdoors after work for most people.  ( Face it, some people work 3 to 11 or 11 to 7 by choice or because that’s when they can find work.)

With Standard Time, most people are getting up when it’s dark anyway.  Wouldn’t you rather have dark in the morning and more light when you leave the office?  

The idea of having an extra hour at the beach in the afternoon, or for enjoying the rides at Florida's world famous theme parks, Soto thinks both tourists and Floridians would embrace.

"I think Floridians' quality of life, and potentially economics, would be improved by having an hour more of sunshine in the afternoon,"  Soto told the Miami New Times.

Surprisingly, it is a topic about which Soto gets input from constituents.

"It really breaks up the rhythm that people have in their daily lives. We've had hundreds of emails on this from folks who don't like the fact that we lose an hour of sunshine in the winter," he added.

Other states make modifications. For instance, Arizona never goes on Daylight Savings Time.  When asked one resident said,  “We don’t want more sun in the summer.”  That time of year it’s already 105 -115 out there.  The last thing they want is more heat. 

Indiana splits its times zones. The upper left hand corner, next to Chicago, and the lower left corner, next to Kentucky, stay in the Central Time Zone all year long.

Hawaii stays on Central Time all year long.  

Apparently the UK tried permanent Daylight Time it in the 1960s and went back to a summer and winter time.

The only real difficulty would be with television programming. All the 10 PM programs would be at 11 PM instead. But we can solve that issue with DVRs.  

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/02/bill_filed_to_keep_florida_on.php

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/article/297701/483/Is-Florida-ready-for-year-round-daylight-saving-time

 

-- Kathy Bissell