Tampa council hears complaints about film crews

A council member calls for the city to consider new rules to make sure production crews don't unnecessarily bother neighborhoods.

By STEVE HUETTEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 3, 2000

TAMPA -- Shooting television commercials is big business in Hillsborough County, paying tens of millions of dollars each year to local film crews, hotels, caterers and even people who rent out their homes as backdrops.

But Hyde Park resident Larry Thornberry calls the business a big pain in the neck.

Television production trucks and vans clog narrow streets and block driveways, he says. One company set up a meal tent in an alley 100 feet from his home. The sound of air compressors and glare of lights at night disrupt his quiet neighborhood.

"It's an industrial use," said Thornberry, a freelance writer and writing instructor who lives on S Willow Avenue. "This is the reason we have zoning. If you allow this, why not anything else that creates cash? Why not a disco?"

His complaints caused a stir at the City Council Thursday over a business the city, county and tourism boosters work hard to welcome here.

City attorneys advised that Tampa's zoning codes prohibit television production in residential areas.

Council member Rose Ferlita, a Hyde Park resident, called for the city to consider new rules to make sure production crews don't unnecessarily bother neighborhoods.

"These huge, huge trucks block your driveway, park in your driveway, even on your lawn," said Ferlita, whose neighbor was a host to a crew shooting a Publix commercial two months ago. "We don't want to be unfair to that industry. But do we worry about revenue instead of neighborhoods? No."

Council member Bob Buckhorn called the film business an ideal industry and warned that word of any new regulations could scare away producers across the country.

"It's the type of industry we as a community should give our right arm for," he said. "It's clean, it puts Tampa on the map and it adds excitement to the normal day-to-day drudgery."

The film business -- mostly television commercials but also catalog photography, infomercials, music videos and the occasional feature movie -- brought more than $46-million into the county last year, said Edie Emerald, Tampa/Hillsborough film commissioner.

Some 4,200 locals were hired in about 200 shootings, she said. The average production company spent three or four days and between $300,000 and $350,000 locally. Emerald said.

Locations vary widely. Some rural northwest Hillsborough locations provide Midwest pasture backdrops. Ybor City's bar strip is used as a look-alike for New Orleans, Emerald said.

Only about 25 productions took place in residential areas last year, she said, and about half of those were in Hyde Park.

Producers say the neigborhood's manicured lawns and historic homes give it an ideal Middle America look, Emerald said.

Her office distributes leaflets in neighborhood locations a few days before shooting begins to advise residents not to park on the street and give them contacts to call in case problems arise.

"Sometimes, companies have made a mistake or we've made a mistake," Emerald said. "But in most places, people are excited. Neighbors let them use their driveways or yards for picnics."

Thornberry's complaint was the only one her office at the Tampa/Hillsborough County Convention and Visitors Center received in the last 11 months, she said.

But Ferlita said most people just gripe to other neighbors.

"You can see people (complaining) on the street," she said. "Everybody's quietly aggravated and steamed about it."

The council set a workshop on the issue for April 27.

- Steve Huettel can be reached at (813) 226-3384, or at huettel@sptimes.com.

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