Welcome to the final Friday of Tampa Bay Beer Week. I hope that… hello? Hello? Oh, well. Here's something to read in line outside Cycle Brewing.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn announced he wouldn't be running for governor in 2018, citing family responsibilities, not wanting to disrupt his wife's medical practice, and the fact that being a moderate, level-headed and experienced non-batshit-crazy career politician is something of a liability in the larger arenas these days.
The Florida State Senate passed a measure that requires all 12 jurors to be unanimous in handing down a death sentence. So which impulse do you think is stronger, the one that makes you want to fit in with the crowd, or the one that makes you feel a bit tetchy about participating in state-sanctioned murder? Either way, say goodbye to any sort of expeditious jury selection process.
The Cross-Bay Ferry has recently seen high enough ridership to begin returning money to the municipalities that funded the pilot program. But nothing but congested car traffic will ever work for Tampa Bay area transit, and you're an idiot dreamer for ever thinking otherwise.
And finally, a Pinellas County inmate was convicted of trying to hire a hitman to kill the witnesses and family members of witnesses that put her away for money laundering and wire fraud. Not to keep her out of jail, mind you — as retaliation for helping land her there. Sometimes there's something to be said for one's single-minded force of will. Other times, that shit is hardcore terrifying.
This article appears in Mar 9-16, 2017.