Broward Activist Seeks 'Vaxxed Only' Business Policy, Trolls Florida

On September 3, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that the state would become the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including those for schoolchildren — marking a dramatic break from decades of public health policy.

"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic, said at a press conference near Tampa. "Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in [their] body? I don't have that right. Your body is a gift from God."

The announcement quickly alarmed public health experts across the country and drew criticism from public officials on both sides of the political aisle, as well as Ladapo's own employer at the University of Florida (UF).

It also grabbed the attention of South Florida-based political stunt activist Chaz Stevens who, as usual, was quick to test out the new policy. On September 7, the free speech activist who owns several businesses across South Florida wrote a letter to Lapado's office at the Florida Department of Health (DOH), asking how the state's "personal choice" framework might apply to business owners.

Specifically, Stevens asked: Since Gov. Ron DeSantis and Ladapo have repeatedly said vaccination is a matter of personal choice rather than government mandate, could his businesses adopt a "reciprocal personal choice policy" — in other words, a "vaxxed only" policy?

"If individuals are guaranteed this sweeping 'personal choice,' I am asking whether Florida businesses are entitled to exercise the same right in reverse, protecting staff and customers from those who choose otherwise," he wrote in the letter (which is attached at the bottom of this story).

Stevens, a militant atheist and self-described "Satanologist," noted in his letter that Florida law already allows religious exemptions from vaccination, with the DOH providing an official form for that purpose.

"Under my sincerely held beliefs as founder of the Church of Satanology and Perpetual Soirée, being compelled to host unvaccinated individuals — people marinating in anti-science and potentially spreading disease (why, hello Measles and Mumps!) — is a direct violation of my religious tenets," Stevens writes. "If exemptions are extended to Christians, Jews, Druids, or even Sponge Bob Square Pants, then they must be extended to Satanologists."

He argued that denying his request would constitute viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment, citing the Supreme Court's decision in the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, which struck down a city ordinance targeting Santerians for their animal sacrifice practices.

"And let's be honest — it would also seriously piss off Satan," he writes. "Trust me, you don’t want that."

Stevens says that, in addition to contacting the state DOH, he sent a similar letter of inquiry to DOH directors in all 63 Florida counties.

"As expected, not a single flicker in response," Stevens tells New Times. "Not even a cheery, 'Howdy-ho, Chazzer, now kindly fuck right off.'"

The DOH didn't respond to New Times' request for comment.
To protect public health, every state requires children to receive certain immunizations before entering public school, though many — including Florida — allow medical and religious exemptions. According to the World Health Organization, over the past 50 years, routine childhood vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives.

Despite this, Lapado and others, including U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have repeatedly expressed deep skepticism about immunizations.

Florida's plan to roll back school vaccine mandates likely won't take effect for 90 days and would include only chickenpox and a few other illnesses unless lawmakers decide to extend it to other diseases, such as polio and measles.

While the state's plan would lift mandates on school vaccines for hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib influenza and pneumococcal diseases, such as meningitis, Florida law requires that, to attend school, all other vaccinations "remain in place, unless updated through legislation," including vaccines for measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, mumps and tetanus, the department told the Associated Press.

Lawmakers don't meet again until the Florida Regular Legislative Session convenes on January 13, 2026, although committee meetings begin in October.

As Stevens points out in his letter, this isn't his first "stress test" of Florida law.

A satirical political activist, Stevens has long pushed for the separation of church and state in South Florida — and often with tangible results. (His complaints to the State Attorney's Office in 2009, for instance, led to the arrests of three elected Broward officials).

Over the years, Stevens has performed numerous headline-grabbing stunts, including erecting Festivus poles on government property and mailing butt plugs to "naughty" local officials during the holidays ("Their heads are so far up their goddamn asses, so I figured when they take their heads out, they'll need something else to put up there," he once told New Times), and challenging state statutes in court.

In 2022, his Bible Ban campaign proved effective enough that Gov. Ron DeSantis' office revised the state's book ban law, citing Stevens as the reason for the change.