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Budget cuts in on weekly Tea Dance

A tradition among seniors is changed to two days a month as money woes hit St. Petersburg..

By NICOLE HUTCHESON, Times Staff Writer
Published October 18, 2007

Deitra Jones and Bruce Ralg dance to The Moon Is Yellow during a Tea Dance on Wednesday at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg. The dances are $5 and are from 1 to 3:30 p.m.
	[Atoyia Deans | Times]

ST. PETERSBURG - A good waltz needs space.

Jim Gerharz illustrated that point as he moved his 70-year-old feet in a fluid line in the lobby of St. Petersburg's Coliseum.

"I'd say it takes about 24 feet," he said. "That's why this place is so great. It's huge."

Gerharz of Bradenton is a regular at the Coliseum's Tea Dances, a weekly occasion that transported local ballroom enthusiasts to a time when the whimsical dance style was de rigueur - all for $5.

That was until the city had to make some budget cuts.

The dances will no longer be offered weekly. Instead, they'll be held the first and third Wednesday of the month.

The news, delivered in an announcement Wednesday between a waltz and a samba, did not sit well with dance regulars.

"The city is exploding with all these buildings, and we own one of the biggest dance halls in the country, and look what's happening," said Vallace Calini, 83, a retired teacher. "It's going down."

Built in 1924, the Coliseum is one of the country's largest remaining historic ballrooms. The city took over management of the Coliseum in 1989. The weekly dances have been an attraction for St. Petersburg's seniors for decades.

Priscilla Keels started attending the dances in 1972, after a divorce.

"I know people who said they moved here because it was the best ballroom," said Keels, 72, who remembers dancing at the Coliseum as a teen attending St. Petersburg High School. "I'm very depressed to hear it won't be weekly."

Gerharz and others decided to start a petition to reinstate the weekly dances.

Coliseum officials say it's an attendance issue.

In recent years, the weekly dance numbers have dwindled, said Lauren Kleinfeld, the facility's manager.

"In its heyday we would get 400 to 500 people," Kleinfeld said. "Now we get 200."

This Wednesday, 124 people attended.

"We were able to keep it at two a month," Kleinfeld said. 'The whole thing almost went away, but we felt we needed to keep the tradition of ballroom dancing at the Coliseum."

But just because a senior can remember the steps to the foxtrot doesn't mean he can remember which Wednesdays to attend the dance.

Last week Don Koeller got dressed up and drove from his Largo home to the Coliseum for the Wednesday dance. The floor was empty. The dance wasn't being held that day, he later learned.

"I was all dressed up with nowhere to go," said Koeller, 75. "So I went to Wal-Mart."

Nicole Hutcheson can be reached at nhutcheson@sptimes.com or 727 893-8828.

[Last modified October 18, 2007, 00:09:35]