The second annual South of Southern festival is supposed to happen at Curtis Hixon Park on Saturday, April 6, 2019.
The event benefits the Tampa Music Foundation, a nonprofit founded in late 2017, which is dedicated to raising awareness of the city’s diverse arts and music culture. The foundation also works to provide and support musical programs for all ages throughout the Tampa Bay region.
The 2018 edition went on without incident despite the threat of weather from tropical system Alberto, and many of the bands and visual artists have been asked to return again next spring.
“We had a fantastic showcase of musicians and artists that were from right here in the Tampa Bay area. As we got closer to our first annual event, we all knew that we had some heavy rain coming in on our fest day, but all of the bands and our production team worked around it and it was a great example of the professionalism of all the artists and crew members,” Nicole Winkler, co-founder of Tampa Music Foundation, told CL.
“We are excited to ask [the musicians] to return and be a part of an even larger lineup for this year’s festival.”
But South of Southern may not be happening at all. (UPDATE: “South Of Southern is looking to activate multiple venues and areas around town during the week leading up to the event as a larger showcase of art and creative talent in Tampa Bay.”)
Second to that, the way the law works, the applications are accepted on a first come first-serve basis, so by law, we have a default permit. Which means we are not going anywhere. It is FALSE to think we do not have a permit. The City is attempting to revoke access they’ve already given us, using illegal measures, which we will not leave unchecked.
That’s according to a letter from Winkler’s lawyer. In a June 22 letter addressed to councilman Frank Reddick, Winkler’s counsel, Hill Ward Henderson, said that his client submitted a special event permit application on April 6, 2018 to reserve Curtis Hixon Park for an event.
“On April 10, 2018 Donna McCallister of the City of Tampa Parks and Recreation Department (“Department”) confirmed the park’s availability on April 6, 2019,” the letter reads. “On May 10, 2018, Ms McCallister unexpectedly told our client that CHP was on ‘hold’ and was no longer available to our client. At a later date, Parks director, Tony Mulkey declared an ‘internal hold’ on CHP. This is illegal.”
The letter claims that chapter 28 of the City of Tampa code “does not grant the Department the authority to place ‘internal holds’ on City Parks. Rather the Code operates on a ‘first come, first served’ policy.” It also goes on to cite a 2002 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court where this question was asked:
Must a municipal park ordinance requiring individuals to obtain a permit before conducting large-scale events must, consistent with the First Amendment, contain certain procedural safeguards?
The court — according to Oyez, a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute — unanimously said, “No,” and delivered this conclusion.
First Amendment free speech guarantee does not require the Park District to initiate litigation every time the agency denied a permit for an event or specify a deadline for judicial review of a challenge to the denial of a permit. The Court reasoned that the licensing scheme was not based on subject-matter censorship, but rather content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation of the use of a public forum thus making the ordinance constitutional. “On balance, we think the permissive nature of the ordinance furthers, rather than constricts, free speech,” wrote Justice Scalia for the Court.
It seems that this mix-up centers around events that may be happening as part of activities built around the 2019 Women’s Final Four, which will play games at Amalie Arena on April 5 and 7, 2019. Tampa won the bid in 2014. In recent years, the park has been a highlight of the college football championship and NHL All-Star Game. Curtis Hixon has also been the home of the wildly popular Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF), which brings top-notch international talent (read: Erykah Badu, Cage the Elephant, Ryan Adams, and The Roots, to name a few) and emerging national bands (Margo Price, Twin Peaks, Phoebe Bridgers), so it makes sense that South of Southern — or any homegrown music festival — would have the desire to emulate GMF’s success (although South Of Southern organizers told CL that “we do not want to be GMF or compete with them, which is why we are a month apart. GMF brings in talent from other areas as their headliner. We exist to support and rise up local talent).
[Full disclosure: From 2013-2016, this writer helped coordinate social media efforts for GMF — read about that here.]
In a phone call with CL, Mulkey — superintendent of City of Tampa Parks and Recreation — told CL that his department is attempting to work with South of Southern on the dates. He would not comment on the festival’s claim that his department did anything illegal.
South of Southern’s letter goes on to say that “In reliance on Ms McCallister’s April 10, 2018 approval our client has booked more than 15 artists and numerous necessary services providers for the event,” and states that the client is “entitled to the Special Event Permit for CHP on April 6, 2019.” It closes by requesting that City Council place the client’s application on the council’s next consent agenda for approval of the special event permit.
On Thursday, June 28, Winkler — who has worked with the city to put on Oktoberfest for nearly a decade — pleaded her case to city council.
[Full disclosure: I know about past Oktoberfests firsthand because I was a bartender and bar manager for Oktoberfest in its first three or four years of existence; sorry — I like to be a part of things, and you gotta bust your ass when you’re freelancing.]
“The City has a special event application process, and I followed it. I received written confirmation from Donna McCallister who confirmed our April 6, 2019 date, which we have now planned for.” she said. “Yet, why has our second annual South Of Southern special event not been put on the consent agenda for approval? Do you all support an administration that ignores its local nonprofits, at their will, and at their leisure, to benefit a different nonprofit of their choosing?”
“That’s all I’ve heard from the administration since the ‘oops’ email more than 30 days after we were confirmed… excuses and zero accountability or culpability,” she said. “Don’t all nonprofits have to follow the same special event application process?”
After a little back and forth, plus comments from additional South of Southern supporters and bands like WD-HAN, the city said it was consulting with City of Tampa attorney Salvatore Territo. The city was eventually granted a continuance so that it may look at the process and come back on July 19 with a definitive answer on what the administration’s answer is on the matter.
July 19 is the same day that the council will weigh in on the fate of Ybor City’s chicken population — should be a crow of a good time.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 5, 2018.
