If the story line now playing off the Courtney Campbell Causeway were in some lowbrow summer movie — and not a painful reality for people who live and work there — the plot might go like this:
A certain professional wrestler — you know, the guy whose perpetually kerchiefed head, dark shades, white motorcycle-dude whiskers and gravelly voice make him instantly recognizable, from Tampa to Tunisia— fronts this nightclub off the causeway that bears his name. Hogan's Beach, it's called.
And because it's named for wrestler Hulk Hogan and not, say, a famous flutist, it is no surprise it turns out to be a rocking, rollicking, partying sort of place. You can order a Hogan's Punch involving three kinds of rum to accompany your Hogan, a burger topped with a fried egg that is perhaps a nod to his iconically round head.
"Party time all the time!" a promo video says.
And if this were a movie and not reality, you might cast those who are currently objecting as a bunch of stodgy straights stubbornly against a little free-spirited merry-making.
But no. It's probably not so comedic if you live and work through nights of thumping bass until 3 a.m., concerts that can draw up to 5,000 people, revelers who have imbibed a bit, scary traffic scenarios combined with a busy causeway, and assorted parking nightmares described at length at a Tampa City Council meeting this week.
And they brought along lots of photographs. "A picture's worth a thousand words," Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda said. "Boy, we got a thousand words and a picture."
Neighbors spoke of patrons who urinate in their yards and valets who use key remotes to honk horns so they can find parked cars. A manager of a nearby hotel talked about guests who wanted to, you know, sleep, rather than bounce to the reverberating techno-beat into the wee hours. Residents said they cannot sleep.
And oh, the pesky details when you're just trying to show people a good time.
Turns out Hogan's Beach is not zoned as "a place of assembly," and even to those of us not fluent in code-speak, concerts attended by thousands sure sound like "assembly." The place will be cited thusly, a city official said at that meeting.
Still, neighbors sounded like they weren't objecting to the very existence of a club — just one that has grown into a concert venue that has held more shows in the past year than the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre.
The cliffhanger: Will this affect plans for the Hogan's Beach New Year's Eve bash, complete with bands and fireworks? ("Join me, brother, by slamming in the new year!" Hogan rumbles on the website for last year's event, brandishing a bottle of spewing champagne in each fist.)
Can the two exist in harmony, neighbors and entertainment alike? Over in another part of town, residents rose up righteous in recent years and the city did something a lot of us did not think possible, tamping down some of the insanity that was tradition at the yearly Gasparilla pirate-fest.
Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines
Subscribe to our free DayStarter newsletter
You’re all signed up!
Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.
Explore all your optionsIt's one of the bigs things we elect local leaders to do: balance business rights with those of citizens trying to live their lives.
Maybe even a lowbrow comedy-turned-reality-show can have a happy ending.