The kids are killing Ybor. That's what the police, the mayor and the merchants of adult nightlife are saying. To hear the Trib tell it, a mature citizen can't even pop down to Tampa's most famous
historical district for an innocent cocktail without being beaten and robbed by roving bands of mini-thugs. According to everyone with a finger and a reason to point it, hip-hopped-out Seventh Avenue teen nightspot Club Bling is more than an alcohol-free 18-and-under destination with an awful name; some alarmists make it out to be a staging area for futureless, amoral youths bent on living out a post-50 Cent adaptation of Oliver Twist, without the original's endearing aura of redemption.There is unarguably a problem with crime in Ybor City, when the sun goes down and there's no work or school the next day. There is also some evidence that the problem has gotten worse since Club Bling opened a couple of months ago. It's definitely gotten more conspicuously localized — kids come, enjoy an environment similar to that of a regular nightclub, and then get dumped en masse onto the corner of Seventh and 19th when Club Bling shuts down at 12:30 a.m., when there's a raucous party going on all around them. The circumstances don't excuse the brawlers; I'm just saying the situation is innately volatile.
But blaming all of Ybor's image and income problems (and I don't really need to tell you that this all comes down to money, do I?) on the local teen center, or younger people at large, is irresponsible to the point of offense. It conveniently and wholly ignores the sad, stupid, schizoid history of the area's development, and the hopelessly mixed signals that have resulted.
You cannot hand out liquor licenses like they're your first set of business cards for years on end, suddenly decide to build a freaking mall, and not expect problems. You cannot put the googolplex and the ice cream shoppe across the street from the four chic multi-story dance clubs with the double-digit door charges, and be surprised when chaos ensues. (Disney is the only entity in the history of civilization to successfully manage that trick, and there, the nightclubs are really nightclubs in about the same way that Mister Toad's Wild Ride is really wild.)
We live in a culture that thrives on giving teenagers some very adult ideas, usually via the same media that give them the more age-appropriate ones, and with little thought as to how all of it will be processed. In such a culture, you simply cannot mismanage urban planning to the point where you end up with something like a Chuck E. Cheese's with a full-liquor brothel attached to it, and not attract troubled kids who are (a) convinced they're too mature for the stuffed mouse, and (b) pissed off that they can't get into the room where the good shit is.
Plus, at the very bottom of it all, with crowds come idiots and criminals. I might decide I can recoup the cost of my new pool by charging the neighbors who want to swim, but I'm delusional if I think nobody's gonna piss in it.
Everyone's hoping that the pending Child Protection Ordinance — I was urged not to use the word "curfew" by the city's legal department — will solve some of the problems. The ordinance, which makes it illegal for those 17 and under to be in Ybor unaccompanied after 11 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, has been passed by the City Council and may be going into effect as soon as this weekend. Which makes sense, because kids who are into fighting, purse-snatching and armed robbery will certainly be scared straight by the prospect of a misdemeanor trespass charge, right?
I'm actually in favor of the curfew, though. Not because I don't think there are any 17-year-olds responsible enough to be out after 11, but because I think those that are should be forced to do something more interesting and beneficial than wander up and down Seventh bumming cigarettes.
Eric Schiller, who owns pirate-themed Seventh Avenue bar and live-music venue Gaspar's Grotto, apparently doesn't think the curfew goes far enough. He's spearheading Ybor PAC, a committee whose only goal is to see everyone under 21 banned from "bars and nightclubs in Ybor City serving alcohol," which means every bar and nightclub in Ybor City. Now, I'm sure Mr. Schiller is concerned about the safety of all, as well as Ybor's reputation and present and future vitality. But I'm also sure he wouldn't have advanced such a radical proposition if his place was in the same boat as Ybor dance and music clubs like Orpheum and Masquerade, venues for whom the money paid at the door by underage patrons can be equally as crucial as bar sales in making the nut. As it stands, his business wouldn't suffer — Gaspar's Grotto caters to a clientele that averages well beyond the drinking-age threshold.
The idea of restricting all Ybor nightspots to 21-and-up is frightening, and misguided, on all sorts of levels, beyond the fact that it would almost certainly kill the district's more culturally cutting-edge watering holes. The most obvious, however, is the civil liberties issue — legislating the movements of legal adults is something altogether different than trying to deal with kids still subject to the rule of their parents' households.
But the concept disturbs me for a much subtler, and perhaps more personal reason, one that links Ybor's past with its future. I find it completely disheartening that five or 10 years from now, after the Centro and the big clubs and the scramble to make it family-friendly are gone, this law might still be on the books. Because Ybor City has always been dangerous, and it's always been driven by the young, the young at heart, and those otherwise in touch with youth's excitement and imagination.
What do you think got the money men interested in Ybor in the first place? The city looked a little closer at this neglected, dangerous part of town, and saw kids going there, seeing shows, buying thrift-store clothes or records, visiting independent bookstores.
It's nice to think that someday the kids will have a chance to take charge again.
scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Dec 1-7, 2004.