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Hooters billboard too hot for mayor

So Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard called a restaurant co-founder, and the billboard on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard was toned down.

By MIKE DONILA
Published August 12, 2006

CLEARWATER - Mayor Frank Hibbard was on his way home from church one Sunday when he first saw the billboard for the Hooters restaurant chain.

"Liquor in Clearwater, Poker in Vegas," read the billboard, visible to westbound motorists on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, near the restaurant.

It took a little while to sink in.

"The first time I read it, it went over my head, and then I got it," said Hibbard. "I thought, 'That's not good.'

"It's full of innuendo, and it's not what we want to see on Gulf-to-Bay right when you come in" to the city.

That was several weeks ago.

The mayor said he called Hooters co-founder Ed Droste a short time later, and by Thursday the double-entendre billboard message for the restaurant - which is known for its beer, burgers and scantily clad waitresses - was changed.

A similar billboard along Interstate 275 in Tampa, however, has not been changed.

Droste, who helped open the first Hooters in Clearwater in 1983, was out of town Friday and could not be reached for comment.

"Ed is a good corporate citizen, and he understood," said Hibbard, who attends Calvary Baptist Church. "He said they got a little overboard, so they changed it, and I appreciate that."

The new slogan?

"Liquor in Clearwater, Casino in Vegas."

Hibbard said the city attorney's office did not think the sign violated any city ordinance, adding, "That is a very, very gray subject - between what is obscene and what is not."

Councilman Bill Jonson, who spearheaded an initiative against billboards almost two decades ago, said the whole issue could eventually be moot. He said the city is currently negotiating with the billboard's owner to remove it altogether.

A residents' petition against billboards in 1988 led to city leaders' passing an ordinance to remove the boards along Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard.

The Hooters billboard is one of the last ones that didn't fall under the removal agreement, Jonson said. But that could change.

In the meantime, though, the mayor called the new slogan on the billboard "acceptable."

"It all worked out," he said. "All's well that ends well, I guess."

[Last modified August 12, 2006, 07:11:51]