A Pensacola couple is planning a protest downtown on the same morning and in front of the same building where Escambia County Commissioners will convene April 28 to discuss reopening Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key beaches.

Alex Arduini said he and his wife, Dana, along with the couple's children, moved to Pensacola from Albany, New York, several years ago in large part because of the emerald green waters and sugar-white sands of Pensacola Beach.

"We moved here for the life we have now and that life we have really isn't whole right now because the beach isn't there," Arduini said. "I don't want that to sound selfish, but this is a small piece of the rights and the freedoms that have been taken away. And I want this piece back."

Over the weekend, Arduini created a Facebook event page titled "Open Escambia County Beaches Now - Peaceful Protest." As of Monday afternoon, the page showed more than 50 confirmed attendees and more than 140 people interested for the protest, which is slated to begin at 9:30 a.m. April 28. The County Commission meets at 10 a.m.

The protest plan is three-fold, Arduini said. He's encouraging protesters to picket peacefully in front of the entrance of the Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building at 221 S. Palafox St. while maintaining six feet of distance. For those who aren't comfortable congregating in public, Arduini encouraged protesting from vehicles near the building, imploring people to honk their horns, flash their lights and decorate their cars.

Arduini said he will personally monitor the protest to make sure social distancing guidelines are respected.

The final facet of Arduini's protest is for like-minded people to join the County Commission's meeting via Zoom. The county is encouraging the public to participate in the meeting online and has created a public input form on its website to get public feedback on the proposal concerning re-opening beaches. The meeting will be streamed live at myescambia.com/ectv.

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"This is for anyone who wants their voice to be heard but doesn't want to come to the event or drive to the event," Arduini said, explaining the virtual protest idea. "They can stay home or be where they are at and log in from their phone or their tablet or whatever they have to log onto the Zoom meeting to let their voice be heard there."

Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week that he is leaving it up to Florida cities and counties to decide whether to re-open their beaches, so as long as social distancing guidelines remain intact. Some Florida beaches re-opened Friday.

All of Escambia County's public beaches on Santa Rosa Island and Perdido Key have been closed since March 21. The commission's April 28 meeting will come just days before DeSantis' "safer at home" order is set to expire April 30.

Arduini said most beach visits follow social distancing guidelines anyway.

"When you go to the beach as a family or a couple or even as an individual, when you go, you're not going to set up your towel and your stuff less than six feet away from somebody else anyway," Arduini said. "So social distancing, we would normally do that at the beach but we're doing it everywhere now, which is great. I'm not a science denier, I believe the virus is real. I just don't believe that our beaches should be closed and people should be losing their jobs and livelihoods and things like that."

He said he doesn't expect visitors to flood the beach if a re-opening date is announced. Arduini explained Monday that he thinks the situation would work itself out, with many people not feeling comfortable enough to mingle at the beach and another fraction of the population not being able to visit the beach due to work.

The city of Pensacola does not require a permit for peaceful protests, according to city spokeswoman Kaycee Lagarde.

As it did last week when an Easter block party broke out at Attucks Court, the Pensacola Police Department will likely monitor the protest to make sure protesters follow social distancing guidelines.

"If they want to peacefully protest, then that's certainly their right to do that," said PPD spokesman Officer Mike Wood. "If it looks like we need to go in and speak with them about social distancing, we can do that as well.

The protest's Facebook event page originally explained a plan to gridlock traffic for the vehicle protest portion of the event, but Arduini walked that back Monday, saying he's promoting more of a "caravan."

"Essentially it's going to be vehicles driving around the area who are in support of opening the beaches," he said.

Wood said the PPD will actively make sure traffic is not bogged down by the protest that morning.

"As long as traffic is not being blocked and the vehicles that are parked are legally parked, we won't have any issue with it," Wood said.

Arduini said he would love to see 100-plus people come out on April 28 and peacefully protest, but considers himself a "realist" and could see the crowd size being much smaller than that.

"I would love to see 100 people standing out there taking up every six-foot space, all in front of the building on Palafox Street, I would love to see that," Arduini said. "I would love to see it a wrap around the building. But if it's just me, my wife and a confirmed two or three other people, that's fine, because we're letting our voices be heard and it's something that we feel is important."

Jake Newby can be reached at jnewby@pnj.com or 850-435-8538.