These things usually just get plugged in and we never hear about them. If you do have a "spa" permit and actually doing a final with the spa in place I am not sure how you avoid looking at bonding, receptacle placement, the fence with compliant self latching gate and latch height plus tempered glass in windows within 5'.
In our jurisdiction the electrical inspector does all the "finals" on pool/spa.
2008 made the minimum distance 6' so a 7' cord almost works.
This is one of those things where it is hard to say what is the best way to ensure the most safety. You can be somewhat lenient and try to get reasonable compliance on most of them or get the reputation of being hard to get along with and have them all bootlegged in without any inspection at all.
If someone just goes down to Bubba's house of hot tubs and gets a plug in unit I doubt anyone will ever know unless you have a hurricane and the code enforcement guy catches them on the "after storm fence" inspections. (or you make so much noise someone turns you in to code enforcement).
Even if you get caught for no fence, I doubt the "tall grass and junk car in the yard" code enforcement guy knows the details of 680.
