Sly Stallone Led the Charge Against Anchored Palm Beach Boaters. Now They Are Fighting Back

‘You’re an Entitled Asshole,’ Marty Minari Says

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The author is a senior editor for the Florida Trident. His work as an investigative reporter has won dozens of awards and led to criminal charges and the removal of corrupt public officials. The Trident published the story earlier today, and it is reprinted here with permission.

By BOB NORMAN

Of all the large lavish mansions lining the northern end of Palm Beach looking west on Lake Worth Lagoon, the one owned by Sylvester Stallone is unique.

It has a private beach—nearly a football field’s length of it.

The beach is just one feature of the waterfront estate the film icon bought on the barrier island for $35 million six years ago. He says it’s his family’s “sanctuary.”

“We have never really enjoyed or respected an area so much in our life,” Stallone told the Palm Beach Town Council during a special meeting on December 19, 2024. “It’s just a jewel … a blessing everyday.”

But for Stallone the property also carried a curse – boat traffic at the busy Palm Beach Inlet. He said his peace is shattered by “looky-loos” lured by his movie fame as well as long-term boaters in the Intracoastal Waterway.

“I would just love to have a tranquil moment,” he told the council.

The answer, the “Rocky” and “Rambo” progenitor said, was simple: just clear the permanently moored boats from the lagoon where his estate sits about a mile southeast of Peanut Island.

“It’s unbelievable to me you can have … a place that’s your sanctuary, and you can have some guy sit there for ten months and do his laundry and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Stallone complained. “I disagree.”

The Tulsa King actor said he’d had already enlisted the help of his friend, President Donald Trump, in the mission.

“Nobody has really paid attention,” he told the council in a moment that had the ring of one of his action movie taglines. “Well I’m gonna pay attention, trust me.”

Fast forward 17 months and Stallone has made good on his vow in stunning fashion. After an ordinance limiting anchorage in the lagoon was passed in October, Palm Beach cracked down on boaters, many of whom have been there for decades, cutting their unpermitted mooring balls and slapping their sloops with five-day removal notices and towing those in violation away.

The enforcement action was initially funded in an unusual way: a private donation of $250,000. Writing the check was the non-profit Palm Beach Police and Fire Foundation, which happens to count Stallone as a major contributor but claims the actor had no role in directing the money.

At a council meeting in March, town police announced they’d issued 50 notices of violation, towed 15 boats, and overall had run 128 of the 168 boats originally targeted out of the lagoon. Councilor Bobbie Lindsay thanked Stallone personally from the dais for his role in making that happen, as well as his part in the previous year’s passing of a state bill, HB 481, that paved the way for the new ordinance by giving municipalities like Palm Beach the legal power to enforce stricter anchoring restrictions.

“I’m gonna give a shoutout to Mr. Sylvester Stallone,” she said, adding he “made a lot of phone calls to a lot of important people who decided this was a bill that should be passed” and “deserves a lot of thanks.”

But not everyone is so thrilled with Stallone, or with the town. It isn’t just boats that have been removed from the lagoon, after all. It’s boaters—local residents who see themselves as part of an egalitarian and independent Palm Beach seafaring community that stretches back a century in the lagoon. They want the town to clean up the harbor of broken-down “derelict” vessels as well, but wish it would leave their seaworthy—and often very expensive—boats alone.

Hounded from the harbor, they insist they have the right to moor and anchor there, with or without a state-issued permit. They’ve been doing it for decades and they see the current crackdown as serving only the benefit of Stallone and some of the island’s other wealthy elite.

“I love your movies dude, but you’re an asshole,” said one of the displaced boaters, Marty Minari, of Stallone. “You’re an entitled asshole.”

‘Here First’

For Minari and dozens of other boaters, the fight against Stallone and the Town of Palm Beach is infinitely larger than the lagoon. It’s about the public’s right to navigable waters guaranteed in federal law and the Florida Constitution.

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On February 13, town police placed a notice on Minari’s 40-foot catamaran, called Mulligan, demanding the vessel, which is insured for $325,000, be out of the lagoon within five days or it would be “removed and disposed of by the Palm Beach Police Department.”

A lawsuit was filed against the town in circuit court just 11 days later on behalf of Minari, who is a pilot instructor by trade, alleging the town doesn’t have jurisdiction over the federally regulated Intracoastal Waterway. The boaters see themselves as the vanguard of the boaters’ rights movement nationwide. “We have to win this,” said boater Cal Landau. “It’s us trying to save Florida, and that’s kind of hard. But it’s up to us to fix this.”

In February, town police cut the mooring ball in the lagoon where Landau kept his 42-foot catamaran for years. A charter guide and boat broker who lives with his wife in a condo but works on the water, Landau said all nearby marinas have year-long waiting lists and cited one that would charge him $64,000 a year. A call by the Florida Trident to the nearby municipal Riviera Beach Marina Village found a waiting list of over a year and an annual cost of about $34,000 for a slip to accomodate Landau’s catamaran.

“If I could say anything to Sylvester Stallone,” Landau said, “it would be to tell him he’s ruined the lives of almost 100 boaters. And we live here. We were here first.”

Stallone and the town have “messed up a lot of people’s lives,” said Elie Edmondson, a veteran mariner and long-time official of the Palm Beach Sailing Club. “I’ve had adult men on the phone literally be in tears that they moved here just to enjoy the water and now they have nowhere to go.”

Edmondson, a property appraiser who lives in West Palm Beach, feels the pain firsthand. His 44-foot sailing sloop, which he’s kept on an unpermitted mooring in the lagoon since 2007, was towed by town police 40 miles away to a marina in Stuart while he was on vacation in February.

“A friend called and said there was a yellow sticker on my boat saying I had five days to move it,” said Edmondson. “By the time I was able to get back, the boat was gone.”

“It’s the mentality of, ‘I want this all to myself. I’ll get mine, and screw you,’” he added. “We feel like we’re the little guys getting crushed underfoot.”

Stallone didn’t respond to detailed messages from the Trident left on his website and social media – but he made his stance very clear in December 2024 while making the clarion call to remove the boaters in the lagoon.

‘Right To Enjoy’

The council meeting starring Stallone wasn’t supposed to be about clearing boats from the lagoon; it concerned his bid to install a 241-foot long “seaweed barrier”—basically a floating curtain of mesh—in the Intracoastal Waterway roughly 50 feet out from his private beach.

The proposal bombed with both residents and the council.

Stallone initially couched it as somehow related to rejuvenating “aquatic life,” but quickly pivoted to the bothersome “derelict” boats, which he said were drawn by his “notoriety” and were “dumping sewage and gas and trash and dog feces, ad nauseum.”

“It’s nice to be appreciated, but there’s a tremendous amount of looky-loos, fishermen, tour boats,” Stallone said. “And sea turtles have been hit, fish have been disarrayed, a lot of trash, a lot of garbage, and so on and so forth. We’re trying to make this pristine, to bring it up to what probably it was 20 years ago.”

Among the Palm Beachers who spoke against the seaweed barrier was socialite Minnie Pulitzer, daughter of the late clothing brand founder Lilly Pulitzer and great granddaughter of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. She turned from the public lectern to address Stallone, who was seated behind her just a few feet away.

“It’s not privately owned, the Intracoastal,” Pulitzer told Stallone while very literally looking down on him. “It’s everyone’s right to enjoy it. I’m sorry you’ve got some people—you are famous—that want to torture you, stopping by, but … it’s for everybody’s use.”

Stallone, who famously wrote “Rocky” with $106 in his bank account, correctly read the room and withdrew the request for the seaweed barrier. But he’d already made clear his larger plan to “clean up” the waterway and evict long-term boats.

“And I’m not just talking about for here,” Stallone said of the boat removal. “I’m talking about eventually Miami, the whole east coast, and maybe the entire United States. I really think there’s a time for this to be overhauled and if I can be at the forefront of that, which I think I can, I plan to do that.”

The first step in that process came just a couple of months later with House Bill 481, which was originally aimed at liveaboard boaters on Miami’s Biscayne Bay. It gives municipalities the power to restrict boats from anchoring overnight for more than 30 days during any given six-month period.

The town hired a lobbyist from the GOP-connected firm Ballard Partners to help push HB 481 through, but Stallone’s exact involvement isn’t known. While thanking Stallone in March, Councilwoman Lindsay said the actor worked with then-state Rep. Vicki Lopez (R-Miami) and made those “important” phone calls to help get the legislation passed, but neither Lopez, now a member of the Miami-Dade County Commission, nor Lindsay, who just retired from office, returned messages from the Trident requesting details.

Others who worked on the bill described Stallone as a sort of ghost in the process. One lobbyist who asked not to be named said HB 481 was referred to in the halls as the “Stallone bill.” State Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers), who co-sponsored the bill, said he’d heard Stallone was involved behind the scenes, but was never personally contacted by him.

“Should I feel like I was left out?” Martin joked. “He didn’t throw me a fundraiser.”

‘We’re the Good Guys’

After DeSantis signed the bill last May, the Town of Palm Beach enacted its own ordinance to enforce the 30-day rule. In a discussion about the ordinance in September, the town again focused on derelict boats, defined essentially as partially sunken inoperable boats, as a target of the ordinance, which doesn’t actually address derelict boats.

Several boaters, including then-Palm Beach Sailing Club Commodore John Hough, told the council it was responsible mariners with seaworthy craft who’d be hurt along with the club itself.

“I just want you to be aware we’re the good guys,” Hough told the council. “We take care of things, we’re not derelicts, we’re very concerned about the environment. But what you’re gonna do is going to be very harmful to these folks.”

Even prior to the ordinance being passed, the town’s marine patrol unit began cutting unoccupied—and unpermitted—mooring balls that had been in use for decades. The boaters point out that professionally installed moorings, where chains are affixed to the seabed, are more environment-friendly than anchors, which can damage the seabed. Potentially worse, the town has left the cut mooring chains at the bottom of the harbor, where they could snag anchors and become a hazard to boaters.

Town manager Kirk Blouin and multiple council members acknowledged that responsible boaters were not the problem and promised to look into ways to protect them. But that protection never came. Boaters’ rights activist Wally Moran, of Wellington, unleashed on the council, along with Stallone and other wealthy islanders who support the measure.

“If they don’t like looking at boats, they should have bought property in Orlando, not West Palm Beach,” Moran said. “And their leader, Mr. Sylvester Stallone, needs to demonstrate what he claims are his roots as a common man and start supporting the little man, not his wealthy neighbors.”

Those words caught the ear of council member Julie Araskog, who resides in a $10 million home right next to the actor’s estate. Araskog scolded Moran and said Stallone had been “incredibly helpful” to the town on the anchorage issue.

“I think that attacks against people are not great and I don’t think you know the Stallones,” Araskog said. “And I don’t think you know that a boat washed up [on Stallone’s beach] and it cost $39,000 and on top of that he couldn’t move it for quite a while. They’ve also had feces, so for you to say he’s just there for his view and the rich people, that’s not true. He actually is a lovely man. He is actually someone who fights for people who are both poor, medium, and rich.”

When reached by the Trident on the phone, Araskog cut the communication short. “I need to hang up,” she said to a reporter. “I thought you were someone else.”

The council was determined to conduct the crackdown, but it had a major problem in executing it: The town didn’t have money in the current year’s budget to pay for it.

Enter the windfall from the Palm Beach Police and Fire Foundation.

‘Get Rid of Them All’

Just before the town council voted for the anti-mooring ordinance, it accepted the $250,000 check from the foundation to kickstart the boat removal process.

Because there was no money in the 2025 or the 2026 budget earmarked for the operation, the money allowed the town to start its work immediately, said Councilor Bridget Moran. “We could have made it a line item in the budget, but not for the immediate year,” Moran told the Trident.

It was Moran’s husband, Tim Moran, who presented the foundation’s check to the town. He’s a co-founder of the 20-year old organization, whose board includes a host of major business leaders and at least two billionaires (oil titan and conservative political donor William Koch and real estate mogul Jeff Greene).

A major contributor is Stallone, who’s contributed $352,727, according to foundation records, with the first $300,000 donated in April 2024, and another $52,727 in the last year.

The foundation’s executive director, Rebecca Godwin, maintained that Stallone had no influence regarding the $250,000 donation.

“The Foundation’s decision to support the derelict boat removal initiative was made independently, consistent with its mission to underwrite public safety efforts,” Godwin wrote in an email to the Trident. “There was no involvement by Mr. Stallone in the initiation, discussion, or approval of this grant, and no communication with the Foundation regarding this matter.”

After the council accepted the check it unanimously approved the ordinance. The general consensus was that it was a shame long-time responsible boaters would be harmed by the move, but they were necessary collateral damage.

“I understand that people are unhappy and I understand that people are going to complain about what is happening,” Councilor Moran told the Trident. “But when we enforce the law it can’t be selective.”

Saying she “loves rules,” she said she had no regrets about the ordinance.

“If you’re doing something that’s prohibited and it’s not legal does it make sense to keep doing it? It doesn’t to me,” she said, adding, “We’re trying to get rid of all of them. It’s the right thing to do for the environment.”

She also expressed sympathy with Stallone’s frustration.

“They anchor within 100 yards of his backyard, screaming music like the [“Rocky III” theme song] ‘Eye of the Tiger,’” Moran said. “Nobody wants that.”

The boaters, however, pointed out they weren’t the ones pestering Stallone and pounced on the environmental rationale as a false argument. Very few of the permanent boaters illegally dump waste from their boats, they said, and laws were already on the books for those who do.

If the town really wants to fight pollution in the lagoon, they said, it should focus on stormwater runoff and sewage leaks. Just this past December, the Florida Department of Health issued a no-swimming alert in the lagoon due to suspected fecal matter contamination following a sewer line break.

“The pollution comes from breakage in the Palm Beach sewage lines and it comes from pesticides and fertilizer coming off the lawns,” said Chris Kellogg, who moved his own boat before it was towed away. “Do you know that one manatee produces 150 pounds of waste a day? There are sometimes 100 of them in the harbor. The thing about waste is a ruse meant to stir people up to hate boaters.”

Reject Compromise

The 82-year-old Kellogg is no looky-loo; he comes from social royalty on the island. Kellogg’s grandfather, businessman Gurnee Munn, first built an Addison Mizner-designed home called Louwana there in 1919. Gurnee’s brother, Charles Munn, was known for decades as “Mr. Palm Beach” and built the Mizner-designed home called Amado, which sold for $148 million two years ago. In 2018, Louwana was purchased by Dr. Oz, the heart surgeon and current Trump Administration official. Kellogg resides next door to Dr. Oz in another home built by his grandfather, but his passion is the lagoon where he’s been boating since he was a kid.

Kellogg has responded to the crackdown by running large ads in the Palm Beach Daily News decrying the enforcement action in the lagoon and calling for relief.

“The damage reaches far beyond the displaced boaters,” he wrote in one. “Many companies supporting the marine industry and employing hundreds of Palm Beach County residents will also suffer. Marine Industries Association figures estimate an approximate $2,000,000 loss locally.”

He too aims blame at Stallone.

“He didn’t like these boats out in front of his house,” Kellogg said. “He didn’t like the idea there were boats he could see out there. He wanted a clear vista.”

Kellogg is hoping the lawsuit prevails and the boaters return to what he considers their rightful place in the lagoon. But Kellogg, like seemingly every one of the boaters, sees an easier solution: a town-regulated mooring field with 100 or more slips.

“The town has a responsibility to install a mooring field and patrol it,” Kellogg said. “They have boats to patrol it anyway, so there’s no additional cost.”

The sailing club’s Hough brought up the idea to the council in September.

“That would be ideal for us and for you, because those moorings would be safe and they wouldn’t allow derelicts out there,” Hough told the council.

The town, however, opposes the installation of a mooring field and has gone so far as to file legal objections to the nearby City of Rivera Beach’s proposal for one. At a council meeting last May, one of Stallone’s neighbors, Bradford Gary, explained that a mooring field would drive down property values on the island.

“We have a neighbor who’s trying to sell his place for $90 million,” Gary told the council. “You think that’s gonna sell when there’s boaters coming to shore from a mooring field using his front yard as … a bathroom?”

Minari, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, said it was a typical elitist—and false—claim.

“Who’s climbing a seawall to take a dump on a $90 million lawn?” he asked.

Displaced boater Edmondson said Blouin, the town manager, told him personally the town would object to any mooring field being put in the lagoon. “I have residents that don’t want to see any boats out there,” Edmondson recalled Blouin telling him. (Blouin didn’t return a message for comment from the Trident).

Edmondson said he feels little hope of a compromise at this point. He said he’s tried everything from addressing the council, meeting with the town manager, and writing letters pleading for help on behalf of the Palm Beach Sailing Club. One letter was sent to Stallone.

“I’m 64 now, but remember as a younger man how the story lines of Rocky and Rambo moved me and encapsulated the American spirit,” Edmondson wrote in an Oct. 6 letter to the actor. “For the Club this is a bit of a ‘Rambo’ moment in that the Town is taking actions we feel are heavy-handed and will destroy our lifestyle and freedom to enjoy public waters…It is not possible for me to overstate how much your help on this issue would be appreciated.”

He didn’t receive a response.