From the red carpet to the Palm Beach Town Hall podium. Well-known actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone spoke publicly at a recent town council meeting about his controversial plan to put a seaweed barrier in the water outside his Florida mansion.
Stallone originally wanted the barrier to keep seaweed and trash from piling up and to keep boaters at a distance— but residents were concerned about environmental impacts, boater safety and the inability to navigate waters freely.
“I’d like to frame this discussion, though, with one thought in mind, if you buy a house near an airport, don’t complain about the airplane noise, and it’s a similar situation here,” resident Susan Gary said.
Stallone expressed his love for the area, telling the council he wants the beach and water at his $35 million mansion to be healthy and to mitigate onlookers.
“It’s nice to be appreciated, but there’s a tremendous amount of looky-loos, fishermen, tour boats and so turtles have been hit,” Stallone said. “Fish have been disarray, 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.”
After hearing the pushback from fellow neighbors, the “Rocky” star threw in the towel and pulled the project.
“In consulting with the Stallones, and after hearing all his neighbors and not wanting to upset the neighborhood and be good neighbors, they’re just going to withdraw the application,” a member of the Stallone family team said.
This story was originally published by Michael Hoffman at Scripps News West Palm Beach.
