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Closing time for bar may be near

The City Council has had its fill of frequent servings of trouble at Gene's in east Tampa.

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published January 12, 2007

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

It is, Tampa police say. This bar, where a flaming cauldron hangs above the bartender to illuminate her drinkmaking, 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, having heard enough, the Tampa City Council took the first step toward closing down 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, "and I truly believe 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 from there and made 27 arrests, police said.

"That particular facility is a base for bad ingredients," police Capt. Gerald Honeywell said.

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

The publisher of the Florida Sentinel-Bulletin newspaper, which operates across the street, said she pays someone to pick up needles, feces and other trash. Area business recruiters said they can't recruit to the area. Michelle Patty, a community leader, said drug dealers approach her grandchildren.

If Gene's were in a white neighborhood, resident Diane Hart said, the council would have booted it a long time ago.

"The community has said over and over," she said, "we don't want this business."

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," member Mary Alvarez said.

The council told the city attorney to come back in two weeks with information needed to start action, whether it be liquor license proceedings or another route.

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.

In Gene's on Thursday, a woman wearing a backpack danced to a jukebox playing rhythm and blues. A half-drunk bottle of Hennessy Cognac sat between three men at the bar.

"A lot of the problems are the community's problems," said server Starr Bell, 43. "Not Gene O'Steen's."

Busting Gene's won't solve anything, 75-year-old John Evans said.

He was 17 when he first bellied up to the bar. The Army sent him to Vietnam, Korea and Germany. When he came back, he headed back to Gene's, where "everybody here is family."

The problems, he pointed out, come from the outside.

Justin George can be reached at 813 226-3368 or jgeorge@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 12, 2007, 05:40:01]