Voyeur business leaves Tarpon

Ucanwatch.com moves from its waterfront home. It still faces more than $100,000 in fines, however.

By KATHERINE GAZELLA

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 3, 2001

TARPON SPRINGS -- As promised, the owner of the voyeur Web site ucanwatch.com has cleaned everything out of a waterfront home in Tarpon Springs.

"The computers are gone, the girls are gone," said Capt. Bob Kochen of the Tarpon Springs Police Department. "Ucanwatch.com is gone."

Kochen got a tour of the Kreamer Bayou house Tuesday from ucanwatch.com owner Michael Schriver and found no signs of the online business. Faced with the possibility of a court injunction last month, Schriver told a judge he would end his months-long battle with the city and leave town.

"We'll be out of Tarpon Springs," he said last month. "We will not be involved in your community at all . . . or in Pinellas County."

Schriver gave himself the deadline of Oct. 1. Kochen said Tuesday that the move ends the Police Department's case involving ucanwatch.com.

In April, Tarpon Springs' Code Enforcement Board told ucanwatch.com to shut down its local operation by May 15 or face daily fines. The company's accrued fines of more than $100,000 still stand unless the city's code board decides to reduce them, said city director of planning and zoning Walter Fufidio.

The code board ruled that the company violated city ordinances requiring all businesses to obtain occupational licenses and requiring adult-use businesses to obtain an adult-use permit. It also violated ordinances that allow adult businesses only in highway business districts and that do not allow such businesses in areas zoned residential/single family, according to the board.

The company argued that it operates in cyberspace, not in Tarpon Springs, and therefore wasn't subject to city ordinances. It continued to operate after the deadline and started accruing $800 a day in fines.

In May, Tarpon Springs city commissioners voted to go to court and seek an injunction requiring the company to cease operations from the Kreamer Bayou house.

The city's motion said the company violated four city ordinances. The motion also said women appear on the Web site entirely nude and engaged in "erotic touching."

The Web site was still up Tuesday. In addition to offers such as "All girls, all the time, no searching," ucanwatch.com provided links to photographs and poems related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"UCW (ucanwatch.com) salutes heroes and victims," the site said.

Stephen Shutt, who owns the 7,000-square-foot Kreamer Bayou house, said he plans to sell the waterfront home, where he used to live. He said the asking price might be about $795,000.

- Staff writer Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4182 or gazella@sptimes.com.

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