Skip to content

Free shipping on orders over $50

Solvyn

The Key West sunscreen ban does not operate

Florida preempted local regulation of over-the-counter drugs to the state in 2020, before the City’s ordinance could take effect.

Key West passed a sunscreen ordinance in February 2019, and it was widely reported as the second place in the United States to restrict oxybenzone and octinoxate. Round-ups still list it. What happened next is usually left out.

The Legislature took the subject away from every city in Florida

Notwithstanding any other law or local ordinance or regulation to the contrary, the regulation of over-the-counter proprietary drugs and cosmetics is expressly preempted to the state.
§499.002(7) · Fla. Stat. §499.002(7)
The Florida Legislature · read word for word on Sunscreen is an over-the-counter drug, regulated under the FDA's monograph system. The preemption reaches the whole category, not sunscreen specifically.

“Notwithstanding any other law or local ordinance or regulation to the contrary” is the operative phrase. It does not ask whether a local rule is reasonable or well-intentioned; it removes the power to make one. Subsection (7) was added by ch. 2020-118, whose final section fixes the date:

This act shall take effect July 1, 2020.
Ch. 2020-118, §2 · Ch. 2020-118, Laws of Florida
Florida Department of State · read word for word on

What that means in practice

A visitor to Key West is not restricted in what sunscreen they may buy or wear by any local rule, because Florida law does not permit the City to impose one. There is no state-level Florida equivalent of Hawaii’s statute either — the preemption moved the subject to Tallahassee without putting anything in its place.

This is worth stating carefully rather than triumphantly. The reef is still there and the chemistry has not changed; what changed is only which level of government may legislate about it.

What we could not verify

The City’s own instrument is usually cited as “Ordinance 19-01”. We could not confirm that number from any City of Key West source, and we could not establish whether the code section it created remains in the City Code — unenforceable but present — or has since been removed. Those are different facts, and this page does not choose between them. The preemption above is what we verified, and it is what decides the outcome either way.

Every quotation on this page was read from the issuing body’s own text, not from a summary. This page was last reviewed end to end on . Each quotation carries its own source and the date that text was read.

This page describes what a published statute says. It is not legal advice.

Other jurisdictions