Tampa rule to put stop to parking lot drinking

TAMPA -- Teenagers who get carded at Ybor City bars have found a way around the law, police say.

They just drink in the parking lots.

"That is how they keep up with their friends inside," Tampa police Capt. Hugh Miller told the City Council on Thursday.

To put an end to that tactic, the council passed an ordinance Thursday that will make it illegal for anyone to drink alcohol in all parking lots in Ybor City.

The ordinance applies to public and private parking lots, even if they're only open for a special event such as Guavaween.

It's already illegal to drink in lots that post signs against drinking.

The ordinance passed Thursday will require all parking lot owners to post signs prohibiting drinking. The rule applies to everyone, including adults over 21.

Anyone who refuses to post a sign or is caught drinking could face a $500 fine or 60 days in jail.

"It is closing up a big loophole," said Vince Pardo, president of the Ybor City Development Corp.

No one spoke against the new rules at Thursday's meeting.

Pardo said Ybor bar and nightclub owners support the ordinance because they don't want to get blamed for underage drinking. Many do their part to enforce the law, and some clubs have spent thousands on machines to detect well-done fake IDs, Pardo said.

"We believe that in fact the clubs are getting a bad rap," said A.J. Grimaldi II, past chairman of the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce. "Drinking takes place before they go into the clubs and after they leave the clubs."

City Council member Linda Saul-Sena asked about applying similar rules to the area around Club XS in downtown Tampa.

The city owns many parking lots around the club, which is across the street from the Tampa Convention Center.

The club's parking lots have been the scene of several deadly shootings since 1998.

In July, one St. Petersburg man was killed and another critically injured in a shooting in the parking lot by Club XS about 3 a.m. Last year, a 21-year-old Tampa man was shot and killed in the club's overflow parking lot at 2:45 a.m. And in September 1998, a Tampa police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old Polk County man who fired a gun at a car while leaving the club.

The club rents space from a partnership that includes lawyers Jeremy Ross and Jeffrey Warren, both partners at the Tampa law firm of Bush, Ross, Gardner, Warren & Rudy.

"The tenant, as far as I am concerned, is a good tenant," Ross said Thursday. "What it does or what it doesn't do is its business -- not ours -- as long as it is abiding by the laws and ordinances of the state of Florida and the city of Tampa."

Ross said he did not believe any crime had occurred on club property while the club was open.

"It is not our business," Ross said. "I don't mean it's not our concern as citizens."

City staff will report back to the council in two weeks on problems at Club XS.

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