The ordinances embraced in the following chapters and sections shall constitute and be designated the "Code of Ordinances of the City of Cape Coral, Florida", and may be so cited.

Charter reference— Codification authorized, see § 4.21(b)

State Law reference— Authority to codify ordinances, see FL. Const. Art. 8, § 2

In the construction of this code and of all ordinances, the following rules shall be observed, unless the construction would be inconsistent with the manifest intent of the City Council.

CITY. The City of Cape Coral, Florida, and shall extend to and include its several officers, agents and employees.

CITY COUNCIL, COUNCIL. The City Council of the City of Cape Coral, Florida.

COUNTY. The County of Lee, Florida.

COMPUTATION OF TIME. Whenever a notice is required to be given or an act to be done a certain length of time before any proceeding shall be had, the day on which the notice is given, or the act is done, shall not be counted in computing the time, but the day on which the proceeding is to be had shall be counted.

DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY. Whenever a provision appears requiring the head of a department or some other city officer or employee to do some act or perform some duty, it shall be construed to authorize the head of the department or other officer or employee to designate, delegate and authorize subordinates to perform the required act or perform the duty unless the terms of the provision or section specify otherwise.

GENDER. A word importing either the masculine or feminine gender shall extend and be applied to both the masculine and feminine genders, and to firms, partnerships and corporations.

HIGHWAY. Any street, alley, highway, avenue or public place or square, bridge, viaduct, tunnel, underpass, overpass or causeway in the city dedicated or devoted to public use.

KEEPER and PROPRIETOR. Persons, firms, associations, corporations, clubs and co- partnerships, whether acting by themselves or through a servant, agent or employee.

NUMBER. A word importing the singular may extend and be applied to the plural, and vice versa.

OATH. An affirmation in all cases in which, by law, an affirmation may be substituted for an oath, and in such cases the words SWEAR and SWORN shall be equivalent to the words AFFIRM and AFFIRMED.

OR, AND. "Or" may be read "and" and "and" may be read "or", if the sense requires it.

OWNER. Applied to a building or land, shall include any part owner, joint owner, tenant in common, tenant in partnership, joint tenant or tenant by the entirety of the whole or of a part of the building or land.

PERSON. Shall extend and be applied to associations, clubs, societies, firms, partnerships and bodies politic and corporate, as well as to individuals.

PERSONAL PROPERTY. Every species of property except real property, as herein defined.

PROPERTY. Real, personal and mixed property.

PUBLIC PLACE. Any place subject to the primary control of any public agency, including but not limited to any park, street, public way, cemetery, school yard or open space adjacent thereto and any lake, stream, basin, river, beach or canal.

(Ord. 38-92, 7-13-1992)

REAL PROPERTY. Lands, tenements and hereditaments.

SIDEWALK. Any portion of a street between the curbline and the adjacent property line, intended for the use of pedestrians, excluding parkways.

SIGNATURE or SUBSCRIPTION. Includes a mark when the person cannot write.

STATE. The State of Florida.

STREET. Embrace streets, avenues, boulevards, roads, alleys, lanes, viaducts and all other public ways in the city.

TENANT, OCCUPANT. Applied to a building or land, shall include any person holding a written or oral lease of, or who occupies the whole or a part of, the building or land, either along or with others.

TENSE. Words used in the past or present tense include the future as well as the past and present.

WRITTEN or IN WRITING. Any representation of words, letters or figures, whether by printing or otherwise.

State Law reference— Definitions of terms used in Florida Statutes, see F.S. § 1.01

The catchlines of the several sections of this code printed in boldface type are intended as mere catchwords to indicate the contents of the sections and shall not be deemed or taken to be titles of the sections, nor as any part of the section; nor, unless expressly so provided, shall they be so deemed when any of the sections, including the catchlines, are amended or reenacted.

Any and all additions and amendments to this code, when passed in such form as to indicate the intention of the City Council to make the same a part hereof, shall be deemed to be incorporated in this code so that reference to the Code of the City of Cape Coral, Florida, shall be understood and intended to include additions and amendments.

Charter reference— Ordinances in general, see § 4.18

All ordinances passed subsequent to the adoption of this code which amend, repeal or, in any way, affect this code may be numbered in accordance with the numbering systems of this code and printed for inclusion herein, or in the case of repealed chapters, sections and subsections, or any part thereof, by subsequent ordinances, the repealed portions may be excluded from the code by omission from reprinted pages affected thereby, and the subsequent ordinances as numbered and printed or omitted, in the case of repeal, shall be prima facie evidence of the subsequent ordinances until the time that this code and subsequent ordinances numbered or omitted are readopted as a new code of ordinances by the City Council.

Amendments to any of the provisions of this code should be made by amending the provisions by specific reference to the section of this code in substantially the following language: "That section of the Code of the City of Cape Coral, Florida, is hereby amended to read as follows:.. (set out new provisions in full)..."

(a)

In the event a new section not heretofore existing in the code is to be added, the following language may be used: "That the Code of the City of Cape Coral, Florida, is hereby amended by adding a section (or article, chapter or other designation as the case may be), to be numbered, which reads as follows: ...(set out new provisions in full)..."

(b)

In lieu of subsection (a) hereof, when the City Council desires to enact an ordinance of a general and permanent nature embracing a subject not previously existing in the code, which the Council desires to incorporate into the code, a provision in substantially the following language may be made part of the ordinance: "It is the intention of the City Council, and it is hereby ordained, that the provisions of this ordinance shall become and be made part of the code of the City of Cape Coral, Florida, and the sections of this ordinance may be renumbered to accomplish such intention."

All sections, articles, chapters or other provisions of this code desired to be repealed should be specifically repealed by section number, article number, chapter or other number, as the case may be.

In case of the amendment by the City Council of any section of this code for which a penalty is not provided, the general penalty, as provided in § 1-14 of this code, shall apply to the section as amended; or in case the amendment contains provisions for which a penalty, other than the aforementioned general penalty, is provided in another section in the same chapter, the penalty so provided in such other section shall be held to relate to the section so amended, unless the penalty is specifically repealed therein.

(a)

By contract or by city personnel, supplements to this code shall be prepared and printed whenever authorized or directed by the City Council. A supplement to the code shall include all substantive permanent and general parts of ordinances passed by the City Council or adopted by initiative and referendum during the period covered by the supplement and all changes made thereby in the code, and shall also include all amendments to the Charter during the period. The pages of a supplement shall be so numbered that they will fit properly into the code and will, where necessary, replace pages which have become obsolete or partially obsolete, and the new pages shall be so prepared that, when they have been inserted, the code will be current through the date of the adoption of the latest ordinance included in the supplement.

(b)

In preparing a supplement to this code, all portions of the code which have been repealed shall be excluded from the code by the omission thereof from reprinted pages.

(c)

When preparing a supplement to this code, the codifier (meaning the person, agency or organization authorized to prepare the supplement) may make formal, nonsubstantive changes in ordinances and parts of ordinances included in the supplement, insofar as it is necessary to do so to embody them into a unified code. For example, the codifier may:

(1)

Organize the ordinance material into appropriate subdivisions;

(2)

Provide appropriate catchlines, headings and titles for sections and other subdivisions of the code printed in the supplement, and make changes in the catchlines, headings and titles;

(3)

Assign appropriate numbers to sections and other subdivisions to be inserted in the code and, where necessary to accommodate new material, change existing section or other subdivision numbers;

(4)

Change the words "this ordinance" or words of the same meaning to "this chapter", "this article", "this division" and the like, as the case may be, or to "sections _______ to _______" (inserting section numbers to indicate the sections of the code which embody the substantive sections of the ordinance incorporated into the code); and

(5)

Make other nonsubstantive changes necessary to preserve the original meaning of ordinance sections inserted into the code; but, in no case, shall the codifier make any change in the meaning or effect of ordinance material included in the supplement or already embodied in the code.

The repeal of an ordinance or portion of this code shall not revive any ordinance or portion of this code in force before or at the time the provision repealed took effect. The repeal of an ordinance or a portion of this code shall not affect any punishment or penalty incurred before the repeal took effect, nor any suit, prosecution or proceeding pending at the time of the repeal for an offense committed under the provision repealed.

State Law reference— Unlawful alteration of public records, see F.S. § 831.01

It shall be unlawful for any person to amend or alter any part or portion of this code or to insert or delete any page or portion thereof, or to alter or tamper with this code in any manner whatsoever, which will cause the law of the City of Cape Coral, Florida, to be misrepresented thereby.

It is hereby declared to be the intention of the City Council that sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses and phrases of this code are severable and, if any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this code shall be declared unconstitutional, invalid or unenforceable, the unconstitutionality, invalidity or unenforceability shall not affect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs and sections of this code.

Whenever in this code or in any ordinance of the city any act is prohibited or is made or declared to be unlawful, an offense or a misdemeanor or, whenever in the code or ordinance, the doing of any act is required or the failure to do any act is declared to be unlawful, where no specific penalty is provided therefor, the violation of any such provision of this code or ordinance shall be punished by a minimum fine of one hundred dollars ($100) and a maximum fine of five hundred dollars ($500) in addition to the taxation of any court costs or imprisonment for a term not exceeding sixty (60) days or by both the fine and imprisonment. Each day any violation of any provision of this code or of any ordinance shall continue shall constitute a separate offense.

(Ord. 45-87, § 1, 6-8-1987; Ord. 38-01, 4-23-2001)

Charter reference— Authority to adopt ordinances carrying penalties, see § 4.17(b)

State Law reference— Enforcement of ordinances, see F.S. Ch. 162 Ordinance violations; misdemeanor fines and penalties, see F.S. §§ 162.21, 775.082 and 775.083