Should pickup trucks still be banned from being parked overnight anywhere in Indian River Shores because they were once considered an eyesore that didn’t fit in with the upscale character of the barrier island town?
That’s the question facing the members of the Indian River Shores town council at their regular Thursday meeting today, May 28, when they will be given a recording of a public workshop on the issue held last week in the town council chambers, during which pickup truck owners pleaded for the ban to be lifted.
Shores Town Manager Jim Harpring said no specific proposal for any change in the town ordinance banning pickup trucks will be on the agenda for the full council meeting. But he said it is possible that after hearing from residents, council members may instruct town staff to draft changes to the current ordinance, which is believed to date back to the 1980s when pickup trucks were associated more or less exclusively with the working class – not retired business owners, financiers, CEOs and professionals.
Times have changed since then. The average F150 – the most popular pickup in the US market – now costs about more than $60,000, with some sources putting the average price paid as high as $74,000. For comparison, the average price paid for a new Mercedes 300 C, the most popular Mercedes sedan, was $50,000 in 2025. Cadillac’s bestselling sedan, the CT5, likewise had an average sales price around $50,000, at least $10,000 less than the F150.
Elite pickup models cost much more, with the Ford F150 Raptor R and luxed-out F150 Lariat going for $120,000 or more.
As of 2021, “pickup owners’ median household income was just over $108,000, which is 50 percent more than the overall US median income of $71,000,” according to AmericanTrucks.com. Only 12 percent of pickup truck buyers were skilled tradesmen or farmers, with most sales taking place in suburban and urban areas.
No council members attended last week’s public workshop, which was chaired by Harpring. Of the 30 or so people in attendance, all appeared to support lifting the pickup truck ban and no one spoke in favor of keeping it, although defenders of the ban may still show up at the council meeting this week.
Harpring said the public workshop was held in response to many queries town officials had received in recent years about the rationale for the ban on parking pickup trucks on town streets or in driveways between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., although they may be parked out of sight in enclosed garages.
“I urge the town to change this ordinance. This needs to be adjusted,” said Terry Bowman, an attorney from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, who owns a home in the Pebble Bay Estates development at the southern end of the town. “The ban is overbroad and unnecessary. This is not a good reflection of how we treat each other in this town,” Bowman said.
She noted that many modern pickup trucks are virtually indistinguishable from most Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and more and more drivers have chosen to make pickup trucks their primary vehicles these days, to the point where pickup trucks are now the top-selling vehicle type in the country.
“It doesn’t make any sense that I could park a really ugly, beat-up, 1980s van if I had one, but my sister cannot park her very nice brand-new $100,000 F150 pickup truck in my driveway when she comes to visit,” Bowman said. If the intent of the ordinance is to prevent junky-looking pickups with a lot of gear tossed in the back from being visible, code enforcers have other ways to deal with that problem, she added.
Bowman also noted that the State of Florida had passed a law in 2024 that prohibited Homeowner Associations (HOAs) from banning pickup trucks.
Even though that law nominally only applies to HOAs, Bowman said the clear statutory intent of the Florida legislature is to protect individual property rights in this matter, which she said makes the town’s present ordinance “legally vulnerable.”
Other speakers echoed similar sentiments.
“This is a violation of my right to use my property as I wish,” said Michael Jones, another pickup truck owner.
Several speakers noted that enforcement of the pickup truck ban in the town had been lax or virtually non-existent until about two years ago, when code enforcement officials started aggressively writing citations, which apparently led to the requests for a change and a public meeting to air residents’ views.
“This ordinance is way behind the times and outdated,” said Wayne Summers, who said he has received many compliments that his pickup truck “looks very nice” and is by no means an eyesore.
Another pickup truck owner residing within the town’s limits noted that he had performed many Good Samaritan deeds with his pickup truck after the Vero Beach area was it with multiple hurricanes in 2004. He picked up plants, moved furniture and hauled boats for his neighbors, among many other chores, and even loaded the back of his pickup truck with cases of bottled water to distribute to the neighborhood when the municipal water supply was interrupted.
Rick Fairchild, another pickup truck enthusiast, said the vehicles may still be somewhat of a rarity in a community like Indian River Shores, but times are changing and a lot of people have them now, which is why the town should accommodate them by lifting the ban.
He said trucks have gotten bigger in size and his latest truck doesn’t fit in his garage anymore, so he would have to modify it to look like an SUV to be in compliance with the town ordinance.
“There are many good things about the town, but this is not one of them,” Fairchild said. “This could easily be adjusted.”
Harpring said that prior to the meeting, which had been announced on the town’s website, he hadn’t quite known what to expect, wondering if an angry crowd of pickup truck owners would perhaps demonstrably park their vehicles to block traffic around the town hall in protest.
However, only one pickup truck was parked outside the town hall during the meeting and Harping praised all those who spoke for staying calm, being civil to each other and town officials, and preserving all due decorum.
