As The Blotter, our weekly foray into Tampa’s underworld, has shown, if you’re getting drunk in public and pissing off the cops, odds are good you’re somewhere in Ybor City. It’s as if all that alcohol locked away behind the bars of Tampa’s drinker paradise just can’t be contained. Instead, it flows into the streets (mostly alleys) and ends up consumed by party peeps standing by their parked cars or hiding behind a trash bin. Sometimes these good people just don’t understand the law. (For the record: Ybor ain’t New Orleans, and no matter how permissible it seems, drinking on the street is a no-no.) Other times, bad lads and ladies looking for trouble find it in their red plastic cups full of Natty Ice. Bottoms up.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.