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Sunk by the state

Tourists needn't fear that they'll lose their lazy rides down the cool river. But the roadside vendors who've served them for decades could fade away.

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published July 10, 2005

ICHETUCKNEE SPRINGS - Last winter was the first that Linda Soride didn't have to put on a Wal-Mart uniform, wait tables or drive a semitrailer just to earn enough money to eat.

The inner tubes she rented out to visitors to the Ichetucknee River last summer sold as fast as hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. But now she is riding in her 21-year-old son's Ford F-350, saddled by his car loan, her business debt and doubts about her livelihood as the radio plays a preacher talking about Revelation.

Most inner tube vendors outside the Ichetucknee Springs State Park consider these the end of days.

"I've been praying a lot," Soride said. "If this happens, the Lord'll give me something."

Her 7-year-old barefoot grandson, riding shotgun, came up with an idea. "Work back at Wal-Mart," Tristan Waldrup said.

Up here, about four hours north of St. Petersburg, four miles northwest of one-stoplight Fort White (pop. 409), the Ichetucknee River is the economic engine of the area, and its identity. It attracts more than 160,000 tourists a year, most of whom take a lazy inner tube ride through water as clear as glass and as cool as a constant 72.6 degrees.

Now, though, the state wants to pick one inner tube vendor and let it operate inside Ichetucknee Springs State Park. That prime exposure, plus restrictions the state would put on other vendors, has many merchants afraid they'll be put out of business.

Tourists will love a one-stop service, which will make the park more profitable, the state says. But most of the five tube vendors who have made a living on the side roads of Ichetucknee Springs for decades say they'll be out of business. To them, it's just another piece of old Florida becoming a corporate theme park.

Soride, 56, a sun-bleached brunette with a Southern accent that makes Northern tourists say, "keep talking," has rented inner tubes since 1970.

"Ichetucknee Tube Center," her signs read. "The 1st and ORIGINAL tube vendor since 1971."

It began after Soride and her brothers saw discarded inner tubes lying in the river. They bought five and rented them from their front yard.

Soon, they had 100 tubes, tying them to cars, sending bare-chested kids and suburban parents down the Ichetucknee, where rides can last nearly four hours, and make lasting memories. Competitors sprang up, armed with prime roadside corners and waving pretty girls. Soride leapfrogged them and leased a Fort White gift shop, making her the first vendor people saw as they pulled in.

State environmental restrictions limited the number of tubes allowed on the river over the years, and vendors were required to buy liability insurance, which can cost $2,000 a year. But Soride stayed afloat, investing thousands of dollars in clear, yellow, green and blue tubes, figure eight tubes, snow tubes, rafts and little plastic dragons and alligators. Most rent between $5 and $10.

They are sold outside a blue shack her parents built decades ago. It was meant to be the Ichetucknee Little Store and sits just feet away from her home.

"She laid the rock on that house over there," Soride said of her mother, Estelle.

This was where her mother operated a broiler house and kept the family together when Soride's father died. Those are the fields, across the road, where Soride and her mother walked, checking cattle. This was where Estelle died.

Even if the state flattens her inner tube business, Soride will not abandon her mother's home.

"It means a lot to her," she said, "and it means a lot to me."

The state isn't looking to put Soride, or any vendor, out of business, Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Matt Mitchell said. The goal of the Division of Recreation and Parks, which put forth the single tube vendor plan, is to increase customer service, encourage more activities like canoeing, kayaking and hiking, and make more money.

The park generates an economic impact of $7.2-million locally but it's a "very lopsided economic engine," Mitchell said. The state wants it to perform better in winter when the stream of visitors becomes a trickle.

The state also wants to keep up appearances. Florida's state parks are finalists for its second gold medal as the nation's best park system.

With so many vendors to choose from, Mitchell said, visitors don't know which tubes are best, what's legal or where to return them. With one vendor, those questions go away.

"Anyone under the sun can put in a proposal," Mitchell said.

Bids haven't gone out, but the state wants a vendor operating by next summer. Some roadside vendors considered teaming together to buy kayaks, canoes, bikes and other equipment the state might want before applying. But those talks ended, said Soride, who believes a few are secretly looking to bid alone and cut everyone out.

But it's clear few of them support the state.

"It's a bad deal," said Eugene Strawder, who runs Floyd's inner tubes. "Just like people taking your groceries."

Floyd's operates out of a defunct service station. Floyd's sells watermelons and tomatoes on the side. Rusted oil cans and junk line shelves inside.

The Ichetucknee Family Campground, in contrast, offers 1,300 same-colored tubes, 53 neatly stacked kayaks, 26 canoes, stacks of Old Milwaukee in a small store, and 14 cabins.

Vernis Wray, a former property owner and water and wastewater contractor from New Port Richey, bought the property as a "fixer upper," dumped $500,000 into it and broke even in less than four years.

He boasts of running an organized ship, delivering and picking up customers' tubes. He supports the state, earning him the ire of his competitors, who believe he wants to win the state bid.

"There's a better way to do it," Wray, 60, said.

He wants the park run like a safe, efficient professional theme park, not one that relies on rundown roadside stands.

"I sell good memories," Wray said.

Wray said he won't bid on the contract unless he gets along with park management. If the state demands he buy too much equipment or enter into an expensive contract, he's not interested.

Inside or outside the park, Wray said, his business will survive. He will evolve. Why not others?

"Why is this attracting the media?" Wray asked.

When told it could spell the end of an industry that reminds people of the way things were, he responded:

"That's all of Florida. It's all gone. . . . I'm trying to keep it. But I'm not sure customers want it."

A white Jeep Cherokee and a Cadillac pulled up to Soride's Ichetucknee Tube Center Thursday. The license plates read Duval County.

Penny White brought the group of Jacksonville IHOP employees here. She remembers roadside vendors in Ichetucknee Springs just as clearly as she remembers her tube capsizing and her mother holding her by her red hair above water when she was 4.

"These guys have been here forever," she said. "It's like you know them."

Picking one vendor "commercializes" the Ichetucknee, White added. "And they want to keep the river natural as possible?"

"Then I need you to sign my petition," Soride replied. "I'm not trying to take anyone's business. I'm just trying to keep mine."

Justin George can be reached at 352 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 10, 2005, 00:02:20]