Ybor City, Florida on May 8, 2020. Credit: Michael M Sinclair

Tampa City Councilwoman Gwen Henderson wants to temporarily shut down Ybor City businesses at 1 a.m.—but that could be easier said than done.

A press release says that at Tampa City Council on Thursday, Nov. 2, Henderson—a first-term council member representing District 5, which includes parts of the historic district—will propose a six-month restriction that calls for businesses in Ybor City to close at 1 a.m.

The release says Henderson will also make a motion directing city staff to keep 7th Avenue open to traffic on Fridays and Saturdays, plus “identify sources of revenue to expand community policing and step-up code enforcement to crack down on noise violations, loitering, public drinking, and other infractions.”

The news comes less than a week after two people were killed, with nearly 20 more injured, after a Sunday morning shooting on 7th Avenue that Tampa Police say happened as part of a conflict between two groups. In the hours after the incident, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor called for better common sense gun laws.

On Wednesday afternoon, Adam Smith, spokesperson for the City of Tampa told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that he doesn’t think that Mayor Jane Castor has seen any memo or documentation outlining Henderson’s proposed rules.

Councilman Bill Carlson told CL that he, too, has not seen any memo or written proposal from Henderson, adding that he’s only seen news articles.

Carlson said that some property owners in Ybor City were seeking legal opinions about the 1 a.m. abatement and that he called the City of Tampa’s legal team for its opinion.

“The city cannot permanently reduce the hours of operation because the hours are in the site plans. There are property rights given when their alcohol license was given out,” Carlson said. “The city can only temporarily change the hours of operation.”

Councilman Luis Viera told CL he applauds Henderson’s opening up of a public dialogue, but that he and his colleagues have to consider the positive and negative impacts as well as the legality of any proposal.

“We may support these, or only support some, but we need to have this discussion. We can not sit back and let Ybor City become isolated,” Viera added, “families, businesses and everyday Tampeños in Ybor will suffer if we let the problem get worse.”

Smith said the idea to temporarily force businesses to close at 1 a.m. is one of many being proposed.

“That particular one is very complicated and unlikely to be anything that could be enacted quickly, at all, assuming there was support for it,” Smith said. “I think the preliminary exploration of that one looks like it’s fraught with legal issues.”

Smith thinks that a juvenile curfew in Ybor City could be quickly adopted if city council supported it.

Still, it’s unclear how a juvenile curfew would affect the workload of Tampa Police officers in Ybor City. Moreover, while one victim in last Sunday’s shooting was 14 years old, the shooter was actually 22 years old.

Henderson’s proposal isn’t the first effort from officials seeking to change Ybor City—either through noise ordinances or parking policy—but it has invoked the strongest reactions.

Knee-jerk reaction

“This kind of violence is prevalent throughout the country. It’s even more prevalent here in the state of Florida, due to our legislature,” Tom DeGeorge told CL, alluding to relaxed permitless concealed carry in the Sunshine State.

DeGeorge—owner of Crowbar and a prominent member of the coalition that secured $15 billion in relief for independent venues shuttered by the pandemic—called the proposal to close Ybor City at 1 a.m. knee-jerk reaction.

“Mind you 99% of the businesses in this district are not the problem. They are the solution. We pull community together. We give people an outlet to celebrate. We do charitable events all the time, and we give of ourselves,” DeGeorge added. “And we’re all struggling.”

Jim Peters, President of Responsible Hospitality Institute (RHI) which has worked with Ybor City business owners in the past, told CL it seems like the proposal is looking for a solution to a problem that officials haven’t researched.

“The questions would be: Is it really going to impact the type of shooting that occurred? What relationship does the shooting have to the venue’s and to what extent? Do the venues have proper security? And how often does a shooting or some kind of a high level of violence or disturbance occur in the venues?,” Peters said. If so, he added, the city should work with venues to improve their security.

He pointed to recent events in El Paso and Philadelphia where, like in Ybor City last Sunday, the shooting happened in the public space.

“In those situations, there was a shooting and it was on the street—none of these really had a relationship directly to the venue,” Peters said. “If it’s a public safety issue on the street, then that requires a different approach. Closing the establishment earlier doesn’t necessarily move the people that may have been coming there in a way that they’re not going to do something in some other parts of the city.”

Carlson echoed that sentiment, and told CL that shutting Ybor City down at 1 a.m. will just move partygoers to South Howard.

“From a city point of view, we’re not solving the problem by shutting down Ybor early. It’s not solving the problem in Ybor, and it’s not solving it in other parts of the city. It’s just going to continue,” Carlson said, “This is a knee-jerk reaction that is not based on a thoughtful analysis of the situation.”

Lifelong Tampeño Vince Pardo was Urban Development Manager for Ybor City Development Corporation from 1999-2015 and has worked with Peters’ RHI on issues related to the district. He doesn’t necessarily portray clubs as complete angels, but lauds them for doing a lot in the last decade to police themselves. He also shared Carlson’s concern with the 1 a.m. timeline.

“Think about what’s going to happen,” Pardo told CL. “If you’re of age, you are probably going to go to another establishment in the city of Tampa, South Howard somewhere else. It’s one-a-clock, you’re partying, and going home is not an option.”

And in his eyes, people who don’t go elsewhere will potentially loiter outside anyway. “You’ve now created a larger mass of people on the street that have nothing to do. That’s not a good equation,” Pardo said.

Pardo added that someone who comes to Ybor City with a gun probably isn’t going to go into a nightclub anyway, considering the fact that they’d be wanded by a metal detector and denied entry.

“It almost removes the club,” he said.

For Pardo, the problem is how the streets are being managed or not managed by the police department. “Are they congregating in certain areas? Or are they spreading out the manpower on every block so they’re better eyes and ears in the block,” he said.

And a juvenile curfew would force cops to randomly stop more people, which might not go over well in a city that’s less than a decade removed from a program that saw Tampa police disproportionately ticket Black bicyclists under the supervision of then-police chief Castor.

“Sometimes we find in these situations that there’s a racial component to it because there’s a certain group of people coming downtown that people don’t want,” Peters warned. “They have this reactionary approach under the guise of reducing violence, but it’s not necessarily addressing the fact that you might have a large, young adult population that doesn’t have places to socialize.”

People come to public streets, Peters said, because they think it gives them a chance to be with other people.

“And it seems to me that the shooting was really two groups, which would probably be an indication of some kind of gang-related activity,” Peters added. “And this is where police have to be more strategic in working with gangs and eliminating the threat from the gangs rather than closing venues.”

Closing venues, Peters noted, also disrupts business plans and establishments that employ locals who rely on shifts that might go from 8 p.m.-4 a.m.

“All of a sudden they’re going to lose two hours from their shifts. Some of these people work on low wages and a two-hour shift five nights a week, that adds up to 10 hours. If they’re making, say, $20 an hour, that’s $200 dollars a week out of their household income, which is $800 a month, which could equal rent or food or other things,” he said.

Online, longtime Ybor City establishments like Reservoir Bar have asked patrons to get up early and be at Tampa City Council to oppose the proposed changes at the Thursday morning meeting.

They might find an ally with at least one city councilperson.

Carlson told CL he would not support a temporary action that probably won’t solve a long-term problem and possibly get the city sued. He pointed to the potential of lost revenue for businesses and workers, and the fact that the city could not impose the abatement for more than six months. “So at the end of six months, everyone would come back and the same hours would be enforced again,” Carlson added.

Tom DeGeorge, owner and general manager of Crowbar in Ybor City, Florida, pictured in November 2019. Credit: Michael M. Sinclair

DeGeorge, who is dragging Crowbar to the end of its last lease extension in the district, said most of his concerts are over before 1 a.m. In that way, he has no dog in any battle over hours.

“But the fact is that I know, through all the national work I do, that there is absolutely zero correlation between the time that businesses close and gun violence,” DeGeorge said. “This is a dangerous road that we want to go down, especially after a three-year period that was the absolute worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and all that businesses have had to suffer through.”

On Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Times published an opinion column by Ybor City developer Darryl Shaw, who also called for an abatement forcing businesses in the Ybor City Historic District to close at 1 a.m. for a six-month period.

“Most serious incidents in Ybor City occur after 1 a.m.,” Shaw claimed, “and we must end the perception that the neighborhood is the place for large crowds to hang out in streets and parking lots in the early morning hours.”

Shaw was part of a group that loaned the Times $15 million in 2017 when the paper was on the ropes. In 2021, a spokesperson for the paper told CL that the loan was paid back. The paper has said that it will not disclose the details of the loan, and Shaw has yet to respond to our request for specifics about how much he lent the Times. Shaw’s piece about the 1 a.m. abatement for Ybor City businesses does not include a disclosure about Shaw’s part in bailing out the Times.

Shaw’s made quite the bet on Ybor City, too. A googly-eyed May 2023 profile by the Tampa Bay Business Journal noted that Shaw owns at least 35 properties in and around the historic district. His Gas Worx project at the old Tampa Park Apartments is chugging along after breaking ground last March, and a plan for Shaw’s Ybor Harbor development is taking shape, too.

He’s even let artists who were once teenagers that spent late nights in Ybor City run galleries in his Kress Collective, which is directly across the street from where Sunday’s shooting occurred.

Sean O’Brien, a co-founder of the Screen Door Microcinema inside Shaw’s Kress Collective lamented the plan to impose a 1 a.m. abatement on Ybor City businesses.

“Don’t hurt a bunch of businesses and put people out of work because some people don’t know how to act,” O’Brien wrote on social media. “Typical solution to gun violence in our country. Let’s not blame the guns, let’s figure out a way to change something other than the access to guns.”

Step inside Screen Door Microcinema, a new hidden gem of Ybor City

In his Times piece, Shaw insists that his support for the abatement “is not intended to target any individual Ybor City establishment” or meant to “drive away the law-abiding bars and nightclubs that are good neighbors and do not condone bad behavior.”

As this story developed, CL sent a rep for Shaw questions about his plans for the building he owns at 1611 E 7th Ave., which houses the Tangra nightclub that is also across the street from last Sunday’s shooting. We also asked for comment on the potential negative impact on workers who rely on late-night income to put food on the table and for Shaw’s thoughts on the possibility of late-night revelers to take the party to other parts of the city. We’ll update this story when his response comes in.

Shaw wrote that a “rebalancing” for the historic district is already underway, adding that “Ybor City is moving past its reputation as just a late-night entertainment district.”

DeGeorge, who’s not been shy in his criticism of the rising rents that are driving businesses like his out of Ybor City, told CL that the idea of a rebalancing that punishes hard-working businesses in the district does not sit well with him.

“You have real people that care about our community that are gonna get forced out,” DeGeorge said. “It feels like we’re chess pieces.”

DeGeorge said he called Mayor Castor first thing in the morning on the Monday after the shooting, and offered his help, like he has numerous times since the pandemic. She called back on Tuesday, he said, and told him she already met with people from this district.

“You know what? Meeting with developers and other rich business owners who haven’t been to Ybor City past 10:30 at night in their entire life is a slap in the face to the rest of us that are here in those late hours and love this community,” DeGeorge added.

He said there’s not one business in Ybor City that wants the kind of violence that landed Tampa on national news last weekend, and called it ridiculous that anyone would use a bad actor argument in this situation.

“You know how hard it is to get people to come to work when something like that happens? Who wants to work in an area where these things are happening? Now to punish us? I don’t even know the word for it,” DeGeorge said. “It’s horrible. It’s out of touch, man, it’s cold.”

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