The city and the Tampa Police Department deserve credit — if not the benefit of the doubt — on those announced changes in the Gasparilla parade. More police, fewer waterside bleachers and an extended parade route that now includes Ashley Drive should help. As could more Port-O-Lets, if those in need, indeed, deign to use them.
But if Tampa’s signature drunkfest is going to morph back into something that is more about celebration than intoxication, these well-intentioned changes are almost assuredly not enough.
The key issue remains unaddressed. It’s blatantly fundamental: A parade that can attract 350,000-500,000 shouldn’t have most of its route adjacent to a residential neighborhood. It just shouldn’t. No matter how scenic, and otherwise ideal, Bayshore Boulevard is. New York and Philly and Chicago and Pasadena and Rio have huge parades too, but they don’t invade anybody’s neighborhood. And as a result, they don’t force ground zero residents to go into lock-down mode and shell out for pricey private security – in effect, a form of legal extortion.
As long as the parade stays on Bayshore, the behavior bar will necessarily be set low. Merely making Gasparilla less anarchic will be the goal.
But here’s some advice from one who has a ground zero perspective.
*Make sure those extra police are in the alleys. That’s where the trespissing and public sex are most prevalent. And those arrested for “quality-of-life” violations must be prosecuted. No matter who they are – or who their parents might be.
*And don’t just involve schools in alcohol-awareness partnership. Parents need to be on board. There are too many besotted teen revelers for whom the parade is incidental. For whom a “safe house” is not safe enough if they’ve already lapsed into an alcohol-induced coma.
Too many parents are part of the problem. Where do drunken teens go at the end of the Gasparilla Pirate Fest? Who do they go home to? Who do they answer to? Parents need to revoke these annual societal-norms-don’t-apply, free passes for Gasparilla – in somebody’s else’s neighborhood.