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After 137 police calls, city is fed up

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published January 12, 2007

TAMPA - The sign on the back wall, above the pints of Seagram's gin and Crown Royal bottles for sale, says: "Gene's Bar. It's all here."

It is, Tampa police say. This bar is where gunfire wounded three people early last year. It's where a patron stabbed a bouncer in the neck and killed him on Christmas Eve 1998. It's where police were called 137 times last year - about every other day.

On Thursday, the Tampa City Council took the first step toward closing Gene's, at 2932 N 22nd St. in east Tampa, prompting the bar owner to say it must be election time.

"It's a public nuisance," council member Frank Reddick said. "Something needs to be done."

Police raised the issue. They've grown tired of the drug dealing and violence that emanates from Gene's. They've filed 38 reports there and made 27 arrests, police said.

The bar "is a base for bad ingredients," police Capt. Gerald Honeywell said.

One by one, several east Tampa leaders and residents came to the podium to agree.

The publisher of the Florida Sentinel-Bulletin newspaper, which operates across the street, said she pays someone to pick up needles and other trash. Business recruiters said they can't recruit to the area.

In 1989, the council told Gene's to clean up problems or have its alcohol zoning pulled. Before the bar could comply, police raided it. State alcohol agents suspended its liquor license for allegedly allowing drug dealing there.

But the bar came back.

"It's time to stop, and it's time for this council to do something about this," council member Mary Alvarez said.

The council told the city attorney to come back in two weeks with information needed to start action.

Gene O'Steen, who has owned the bar for 40 years, said the council is making the bar a scapegoat for a crime-ridden area. He said he asked the council to help clean up street corners and that he has cooperated with police.

[Last modified January 12, 2007, 00:01:49]