Give the city, most notably the Tampa Police Department, credit for its recently announced plans to make the 2010 Gasparilla parade a safer and saner event. More police, an extended parade route and the elimination of some waterside bleachers will help. And more Port-O-Lets could also be a factor – if besotted revelers deign to use them.
A couple of points, however:
*Police need to be in the alleys. They also need to make good on “quality-of-life”-arrest promises – and subsequent prosecutions. We all know that “quality-of-life” is a euphemism for trespissing and public sex.
*Too many parents are part of the problem. Where do drunken teens go at the end of the day? Who do they go home to? Who do they answer to? Parents need to revoke these annual, no-normal-societal-rules-apply, free passes for Gasparilla. In somebody else’s neighborhood.
*There’s another term for pricey, property-protecting security that many parade-route homeowners are forced to employ each Gasparilla: legal extortion.
*The ultimate issue, however, won’t be addressed. It’s fundamental: You don’t go having a signature parade — with 350,000-400,000 people – that is largely adjacent to a residential neighborhood. Other cities – from New York to Pasadena to Rio have mammoth signature parades where they belong: downtown.
Hyde Park will remain Ground Zero as long as the Gasparilla parade comes down Bayshore Boulevard. Or until someone incurs an injury much more severe than broken bones or a bloody nose – or someone doesn’t ultimately awaken from an alcohol-induced coma.