Coming soon to a parrothead's bumper near you: Florida is close to offering a Margaritaville license plate to pay homage to Key West’s favorite son, Jimmy Buffett.
More than one year after lawmakers in Tallahassee passed a bill permitting the special plate, a final design has emerged with nearly enough pre-sale orders to make it a reality.
With a scenic beach background, the final license plate design features a red parrot perched on the word “Margaritaville,” palm trees and the singer songwriter’s iconic seaplane, the Hemisphere Dancer. It became a staple of his song, “Jamaica Mistaica” after the plane was shot at and mistaken as a drug-runner plane by Jamaican authorities.
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The Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle department requires a minimum of 3,000 pre-sale orders and was fewer than 200 shy so far, according to figures it published this month.
Once reached, the Margaritaville license plate will join over 100 other specialty plates in Florida, including Buffett’s Save the Manatee plate, designed in 1990 after his Save the Manatee Club to help preserve manatees and their aquatic habitats.
“He would be so proud that his legacy includes continuing to give back through Singing for Change, and that it involves Florida license plates,” said Delaney Buffett, the singer’s daughter. “I know he would get a kick out of [it].”
The effort to honor Buffett began eight days after his death from Merkel-cell carcinoma on Sept. 1, 2023, when Rep. Linda Chaney, R-St. Petersburg, filed a bill proposing the specialty Margaritaville plate. The $25 annual fee goes towards Singing for Change, one of Buffett’s three philanthropies.
Because while he gained fame and fortune from his well-known songs like “Margaritaville” and “It's Five O'Clock Somewhere,” all drawing heavily on his time living in the Florida Keys, Buffett was a “fly-under-the-radar” philanthropist, according to Singing for Change’s executive director, Judith Ranger Smith.
“One of his mottos was, have fun, make money and leave the world a better place,” she said. “So having fun, that's kind of obvious – that's what he did. And make money, well he couldn't help making money because he was very, very popular, but leaving the world a better place means, doing something good and making sure that your money has an impact.”
With $17 million given to over 700 countrywide organizations later, he did just that.
When Buffett recruited Smith to the company in 1995, he wanted to call the company “Scalping for Change,” but later suggested the name “Singing for Change,” as he donated $1 from each concert he played to the local city in which he performed.
“It's got a little double entendre because of the singing, you know, singing for pennies, or singing for change and all those dollars add up to make something really great,” she said.
But since Buffett wouldn’t have the opportunity to play in every city, they realized the process wasn’t fair, and from there expanded to giving money to communities nationwide, sometimes giving to disaster-struck communities like Jacmel, Haiti, after a catastrophic earthquake in 2010.
Money raised from the yearly $25 specialty license plate fee will go towards natural disaster-stricken communities in Florida, specifically for sustainable rebuilding, to ensure coastal towns struck by hurricanes or tornadoes have the necessary infrastructure for any future storms.
And while he’s not around to see the continued impact Singing for Change will have in Florida, if he were, Buffett would have the Margaritaville plate attached to any vehicle he could, bike and boat included, Smith said.
“He was just like a force of nature. He really and truly was,” she said.
Along with Chaney’s bill outlining the soon-to-be-distributed Margaritaville plates, other legislators proposed Buffett-related legislation.
Former Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, proposed a bill which would designate parts of A1A State Road in 13 counties as “Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway” – the longest highway to be designated to someone in Florida history.
Growing up, Book knew of his classic songs like “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “Delaney Talks to Statues,” but in her adult life, grew to know Buffett on a deeper level, working with him on environmental initiatives like manatee and ocean preservation.
“When he passed away I automatically thought, ‘What a special thing to be able to recognize him in this way on A1A Memorial Highway,’” she said. “There was nothing more important than we can do, nothing more iconic to Florida.”
After lawmakers passed Book’s and Chaney’s bills, Gov. Ron DeSantis approved both in June 2024, cementing Buffett’s place in Florida history as a “true pirate,” according to Book.
From his philanthropies, Margaritaville resorts, hit songs and albums, environmentalism efforts and even his death, which helped educate people of the harm of skin cancer, Buffett was all-things Florida. The Legislature’s moves were intended for him to be remembered even on the state’s highways and cars.
“He is emblematic of everything that is iconic in our beautiful state,” Book said. “Just an incredible man.”
This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at kairilowery@ufl.edu.
