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Letter to the editor

Pub at Westshore Plaza is denied

Neighbors were fond of the concept but not the closing hour, 2:30 a.m.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS Times Staff Writer
Published September 28, 2007

The city staff had no problem with it. Neither did the Tampa Police Department. But neighbors did, and that was enough for the City Council to deny an alcohol zoning application from a bar chain that wanted to open at Westshore Plaza.

The Baker St. Pub & Grill, a British-style pub in a chain based in Texas, planned to invest almost $1.5-million in a 7,000-square-foot Westshore location. Four establishments already sell alcohol at the mall, but the pub would have been different.

At Maggiano's Little Italy, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Mitchell's Fish Market and the Palm, food accounts for more than 51 percent of sales. At the pub, alcohol would make most of the money. The others all close by midnight. The pub would stay open until 2:30 a.m.

"We think that 11 p.m., midnight closing is enough for this area that is close to residential," Emmy Purcell Reynolds, president of the Beach Park Home-owners Association, told the council at a hearing last week.

"We fully support the concept, the menu. But we don't want the nightclub atmosphere here."

Reynolds wondered about noise and said she feared that area police officers would be pulled out of her neighborhood to deal with problems at the bar.

Resident Margaret Vizzi said she worried that drunken drivers would cut through the neighborhood.

Grace Yang, an attorney for the Baker St. owners, said the target audience of the pub would be people ages 30 to 55, and that Baker St. would employ off-duty police officers to patrol the area.

The pub wouldn't have any live music outside, she said, and would be contained to acoustic guitarists inside on some nights.

Council member John Dingfelder said he thought allowing a bar to stay open that late would set "an unusual and perhaps a negative precedent" in that part of Kennedy Boulevard.

He asked if owners would consider closing at midnight, but they refused.

So council members denied the application 4-3.

"It was a close vote. We're still not understanding the vote, but we are checking all of our options," said owner Edgar Carlson, who flew in from Houston for the hearing. "There's still a lot of enthusiasm for us to go to Tampa. We feel like it's a market that would be good for our pub."

Carlson, who once lived in Hyde Park, wanted Tampa to be home to his 20th pub, the first of three planned in Florida.

The Westshore district would be a perfect home for it, he said. Hotels and offices would draw travelers and business people.

Jay Botsch, the general manager of Westshore Plaza, told the council he flew to Houston to see the pub and was impressed.

"Hopefully," Carlson said, "we can get some sort of opportunity to team back up and go back to the city, with some more optimistic results."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or 226-3354.

[Last modified September 27, 2007, 07:56:52]