Good Friday to you! Well, you know, not that Good Friday. Allow me to distract you from that faux pas with a rundown of some of yesterday's headlines.
In the wake of the Florida legislature's passage of a new gun control bill that includes provisions for arming some school employees, several Bay area school district leaders have stepped forward to say they plan to opt out of the program should Rick Scott sign it into law. Reasons given for their opposition to the plan include lack of proper training, the fact that teachers didn't sign up to be law enforcement officers, and the knowledge that this is a recipe for tragedy.
Seminole Heights brewery Angry Chair's bottle releases are popular even when it isn't Tampa Bay Beer Week, with folks lining up outside the place on the regular. When TBBW rolled around, things got a little too hectic for the neighbors as beer lovers started queueing through the neighborhood overnight. "I didn't move into this neighborhood to eventually discover that the trade-off for rising property values was the occasional event-related clusterfuck," said a bunch of people, basically. (I hope they realize their neighborhood's just a quick Lyft away from Ybor's potential Rays stadium site and that not everybody's gonna want to pay for game day parking, BTW.) Angry Chair owner Ryan Dowdle took to social media to apologize and promise that such events will be moved offsite in the future, so hopefully an equilibrium can be reached that's acceptable to all. #dontparkonfern
A second person is being treated for exposure for rabies in Hillsborough County after coming into contact with the same cat that exposed someone earlier this week. That's the second cat to test positive for rabies in the county this year, and the ninth person to be treated for exposure. Should we panic? Absolutely. Let's panic.
And finally, Lowry Park Zoo has officially been rebranded Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park, and plans were unveiled for ambitious expansions, including "a new family water adventure." I'm sure the thinking was new baby animals, whole new look, and also it's been years since, well, you know. Plus, Parcade!
