From Florida Scenic Highway to Jimmy Buffett Memorial: A1A turns parrothead in Florida

Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday, June 27 2024 signed bills to honor the late singer Jimmy Buffett by designating Florida's A1A as the “Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway” and creating a “Margaritaville” specialty license plate. Flagler County and Floridians, which loves our Parrothead Jimmy Buffett are celebrating.

The highway bill (HB 91), which passed unanimously during the legislative session that ended in March, will name A1A after Buffett from Key West to the Georgia border. A1A runs through Flagler County for approximately 18 miles, offering scenic views of our beaches and Atlantic Ocean.

“With this road naming, we are paying tribute to Jimmy not only as a musical icon but also as a fierce protector of Florida's natural treasures and our precious manatees,” Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book, a Davie Democrat who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said in a statement.

The other bill (HB 403) will make changes to the state’s specialty license-plate program and create a series of potential new plates, including one displaying the name of the Buffett song “Margaritaville.”

Twenty years earlier, Buffett released an album called “A1A,” featuring several nautical-themed songs, including the concert favorite, “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”

Proceeds from the sale of the “Margaritaville” license plate are slated to benefit the SFC Charitable Foundation, also known as Singing for Change, which Buffett founded.

“Margaritaville” was Buffett’s highest-charting solo single from his 1977 album “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

The state tourism-marketing agency Visit Florida promotes online Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant in Key West, saying “once only a state of mind is now a state of being.”

Buffett is already associated with the state’s Save the Manatee license plate, which is the seventh most popular specialty plate. It benefits the Save the Manatee Club, which Buffett helped establish in the 1980s with the late Governor Bob Graham.

As with most specialty plates, the Margaritaville plate must reach 3,000 pre-sales before it can go into production and must maintain that number year after year.

The bill, which will take effect Oct. 1, 2024 also will change the designs of several plates already on the road and exempt Florida college license plates from the 3,000 minimum-sale requirement. Additionally, it will allow the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to reauthorize discontinued collegiate license plates.

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