South Tampa Residents Complain Gasparilla Out Of Control

With security fences removed, mounds of trash collected and the stench of urine largely dissipated, South Tampa residents still are talking about the annual assault they face when the Gasparilla parade rolls into town.

"I'm scared," said Vicki Pollyea, president of the Bayshore Gardens Neighborhood Association. "It might take treating this as a riot. We've lost control of it.

"I understand there is no easy answer, but we need to step back as a city and say, 'How can we make this an event we can be proud of?'"

More than 50 people crammed into Kate Jackson Community Center on Wednesday evening to hear a post-Gasparilla Day debriefing by event planners and city staffers. The turnout was large compared with previous years. Residents say they are fed up; they no longer plan to "grin and bear it."

Disheartened after the 90-minute session, Darrell Stefany, whose EventFest company produces the festival, said all the residents' ideas - eliminate bead-throwing from parade floats; ban alcoholic drinks at the event; move the parade to another route such as Kennedy Boulevard or Dale Mabry Highway - were on the table for discussion.

"It's not something you want to hear as an event planner," Stefany said of the homeowners' frustration, mostly with the pirate-themed parade along Bayshore Boulevard. "We've got to find a way to rein it in."

Changing the route just moves it to someone else's neighborhood, he said.

"The reality is you have to deal with the behavior," Stefany said. "Gasparilla is not an excuse to get irresponsible."

With the city's population at 342,000, and an estimated 350,000 people attending the Pirate Fest on Feb. 7, it is an understatement to say the 1,200 Tampa police officers were outnumbered, said Tampa police Chief Stephen Hogue, who attended Wednesday's meeting.

Officers weigh each potential arrest, knowing that processing it temporarily will take them off the street, perhaps away from more serious crimes.

During the February parade, residents in the Historic Hyde Park Neighborhood Association, Hyde Park Preservation, Bayshore Gardens Neighborhood Association and Channel District captured images with digital cameras and cell phones.

At Wednesday's meeting they expressed disgust with public urination ("It pools next to my wall and takes two weeks for the odor to pass."); intoxication ("We're creating a culture that is saying it's OK."); and rude, sometimes lewd behavior ("There's no sanity to it.").

They also spoke passionately of the event as the social equivalent of a ticking time bomb.

"We're normalizing these crazy behaviors and saying it's OK to violate the law at certain times of the year," said Gina Firth, the University of Tampa's associate dean of students. "I know this is supposed to be a good event, but it's toxic."

Firth said the school spends two months before the event prepping students to make smart choices, then deals with the consequences for two months afterward.

"It needs to change or end," she said. "I say that with all the passion I have because I'm the one talking to parents of the student who was raped, of the student who was hospitalized or beaten up because someone got alcohol on the route.

"I don't want to do that anymore," she said.

Santiago Corrada, the city's administrator of neighborhood services, said he would review the comments with EventFest and Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and return in two months with a response.

"We know what a sacrifice it is for our neighborhoods," he said. "We have an event that needs work and we pledge to work on it."