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President-elect Donald Trump arrives in Palm Beach County for Thanksgiving

Posted at 9:51 PM, Nov 22, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-23 10:18:08-05

President-elect Donald Trump arrived in West Palm Beach Tuesday night for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Secret Service and the Coast Guard have put in several restrictions on the waterways until Trump leaves the area, which is expected to be late Sunday or early Monday.

Local boaters need to put that into consideration for their holiday plans.

“It was definitely our plan to go out on the boat several times this week and go fishing,” said Peter Lombardi who went out fishing with his son on Tuesday.

Lombardi's boat is located in Zone 2 of the three security zones around the area of the Mar-a-Lago. In zone 2, your vessel has to maintain steady speed and can't slow down.

If your boat is docked in the zone, you need to contact the Coast Guard to get authorization to move it.

“Of course it’s an inconvenience,” Lombardi said.

Chuck Collins, executive director with the Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County said he was involved with the security around President Bush Senior when he was in the area.

“They’ll just set up a perimeter and verify who you are, verify where you’re going to and where you’re coming from," Collins said."They just give you precise instructions of what to do.”

Collins said the Secret Service and the Coast Guard makes sure the inconvenience is kept to a minimum for those out on the water.

For Lombardi and other boaters, it's all part of a new reality.

“That’s part of where we live so we just have to come to learn to work with it,” Lombardi said.

Boaters are not the only ones facing new restrictions. The West Palm Beach Visitors Center is looking at how the restrictions might impact them, right before the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We have a sunset tour that we do as well as a sightseeing tour that goes south," said Kami Kreaps, manager at the visitors center. "Because of these restrictions we will have to send everybody north that also includes kayakers, jet skis, and the paddle boarder."
 

Story updated to clarify date of the president-elect's arrival