Category: MIDTOWN NEWS

BY ZACHARY GIPSON-KENDRICK
NNB Student Journalist

February in Plant City typically marks the start of 11 days filled with festivities, music and the crowning of a strawberry queen.

This year Tampa Bay Times photojournalist Eve Edelheit, 26, and reporter Anna M. Phillips took a less-than-traditional approach to the annual celebration.

They went behind the scenes in Plant City to share the story of local Hispanic migrant workers, more specifically a 20-year-old woman named Maria Zuñiga and her family.

“They don’t acknowledge the Hispanic migrant community in Plant City,” said Edelheit. The project, which they loosely titled “The Real Strawberry Queen,” takes “an intimate look at a female migrant worker’s story,” she said.

The months-long project was pitched to editors as a new angle on a previous project on Strawberry Festival queens, the young white women who have served as local royalty every year since the festival began in 1930.

“It was something we took interest in,” said Edelheit, “You have to be able to get people on board to give you the time.”

“A lot of people think all it takes to be a photographer is talent,” she said. “Your talent can only take you so far. After that it’s hard work and persistence.”

In high school, a photography teacher told her she had a special eye for the craft, Edelheit said, and soon she was taking steps towards a promising career. “I, in high school, really struggled with feeling smart because of my ADD (attention deficit disorder),” she said. “I didn’t realize that ADD actually is often a sign that you’re really creative and think about things differently.”

“With me and photography, I think it really taught me how to not focus on just the thing happening in front of me,” she said. “Just having that ability to be distracted by things around you and, you know, notice the different things that are happening, I think is really important.”

Edelheit graduated with a photojournalism degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2011 and had internships with four newspapers around the country before landing a full-time job with the Times in December 2013.

“I think you have to be really passionate about (photojournalism),” she said. “You really have to care about your community and what you’re doing, and how you can serve the community through your work.”

Supervisors encourage her to pace herself between assignments and projects, Edelheit said. “I think the people that are most successful in the newsroom are the people that go beyond the daily work, who make their own assignments and who take the initiative to enterprise.”

Asked about how she approaches a potential subject for a story, she quotes Times colleague Lane DeGregory, a Pulitzer Prize winning newsfeatures reporter: “When you’re first meeting a subject, you put your toe in the door, and then your foot in the door, and then you put your knee in the door, and just kind of slowly gain that access.”

Edelheit said it’s important to make a photographic subject feel comfortable with a camera close by. “Often I’m not even shooting, really, at the beginning,” she said. “I’m just making people feel comfortable with me, and also letting them know who I am, showing them photos of my life… You have to give a part of yourself in order to have a relationship.”

Her philosophy seems to work. Her photos of people seem to capture an intimacy that could only be possible after establishing certain levels of comfort. “There really is a trust that has to happen if you want your projects to be successful, and then they’ll give you access to their lives,” Edelheit said.

“Sometimes we forget that journalists are human beings, too, and ultimately most of the time, especially on more intimate pieces, we want the best for our subjects.”

See Eve Edelheit and Anna M. Phillips’ report on a young Hispanic migrant worker in the strawberry fields of eastern Hillsborough County at:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/dreams-of-nursing-are-on-hold-as-strawberry-picker-remains-in-the-fields/2222292

BY DUNCAN RODMAN
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – The news media shines when it comes to exposing the negative. That’s good news for crime and courts reporters like Curtis Krueger, 56, a Tampa Bay Times staff writer for 27 years.

The public wants to know about the most heinous crimes in their communities, and that keeps journalists like Krueger busy. In Pinellas County there is no shortage of newsworthy crime.

“Well, it’s hard to top Florida for crime news,” said Krueger.

Krueger is a Hoosier at heart. Born and raised in Bloomington, home of Indiana University, he is unabashed about his crimson and cream roots. Now he brings his Midwestern work ethic to the Pinellas County Justice Center.

Court reporters have to write about unsavory characters. Most of the news stories that come out of the courts beat are about murder cases. When somebody is killed in Pinellas County, it‘s Krueger’s job to cover the legal proceedings that follow.

A typical day for Krueger begins in the cafeteria of the Justice Center, where he gets a cup of coffee, powers up his laptop and checks his calendar. There he searches court records to make sure he doesn’t miss anything important.

“Double murder is unusual. It is almost always newsworthy,” said Krueger as looked up the time of a pre-trial hearing for George S. Georgiou, a Tarpon Springs man accused of killing both of his grandparents.

Krueger is a regular at the Justice Center. When he walks down the halls, he’s greeted on a first name basis by multiple attorneys.

He gets inside information on what to expect in future trials. Based on that information, he can determine not only what is newsworthy, but when it’s likely to happen.

Upon arrival, one of the first things Krueger has to determine is where he needs to be. When he must monitor multiple trials and hearings in a limited period of time, he goes to the press room on the first floor. It’s a spartan room, with nothing but chairs, two tables and a television monitor. The monitor is an essential tool. It allows him to channel surf among the various courtrooms.

When he flips to Courtroom 6, he spots a public defender whom he recognizes – Jill Menadier. “She specializes in death penalty cases,” said Krueger.

He listens to Menadier explain to the judge that it was imperative that she watch a four-hour police interrogation video of her client, Georgiou. The prosecution views the tape as a confessional. The defense doesn’t see it that way.

“Let’s go,” said Krueger, as he hopped out of his seat and headed upstairs in hopes of obtaining more details about the Georgiou case.

A courts reporter cannot spend all day listening to every detail of every ongoing trial, but Krueger has mastered the art of catching up with the attorneys as they leave the courtroom. This helps him keep up with the particulars of a case, which are not available on the clerk of court’s website.

Krueger doesn’t spend all his time at the Justice Center.

“I do some work from home, such as updating my calendars,” said Krueger. “Sometimes I will end my work day at the house when it makes sense to do so, like if court ends in mid-afternoon. I usually make it to the newsroom (in St. Petersburg) Monday through Friday.”

Krueger is a writer, but he lives for the information gathering.

“It’s usually more interesting when I’m out of the office, although I do like the writing process,” he said.

The courts beat is full of the bizarre and depressing, but Krueger understands that reporting on these stories has more social utility than simply inundating his readers with melancholy.

“I feel I am accomplishing something by exploring how the legal system works and letting the public know about it,” he said.  “I think that’s important, and it makes me feel like I’m contributing something, not just spreading out more depressing news.”

In 2000, Krueger did a two-part special report called “Under 12/Under Arrest,” which brought light to the trend of grade school children being arrested in the Tampa Bay area.

“Time was, little kids who got in trouble got off with a stern scolding,” he wrote. “Nowadays, children as young as 6 or 7 are carted off in handcuffs, locked up and saddled with permanent criminal records.”

“A local agency coughed up $250,000 to pay for counseling to try to find better alternatives for the kids,” said Krueger. “Things like that give me a lot of satisfaction.”

BY ALYSSA MILES
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG— After he graduated from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs in 1999, Markus Hughes made two life-altering decisions.

The first decision was to join the police department in St. Petersburg – 1,500 miles away – rather than sign up for the military or the Peace Corps.

The second was to make no secret of the fact that he was gay once he arrived in St. Petersburg.

Things were a lot different back then. That was years before public opinion, elected officials and the courts began recognizing rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people. St. Petersburg was not yet known as the city that hosts the biggest gay pride festival in Florida, and its police force was marked by the hyper-masculine camaraderie that typifies cops everywhere.

“It was hard enough to come out of the closet already,” said Hughes, 38, who didn’t want “to start over again” when he moved to Florida in November 1999. He is now the highest ranking openly gay male officer in the department and its liaison with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning community.

When the gay pride flag was raised at City Hall last year for the first time, Hughes helped Mayor Rick Kriseman do the honors.

His reaction to the historic moment? “Wow.”

Hughes was born in Germany but moved to Colorado Springs once his father retired from the military.  His parents divorced when he was 12, and Hughes decided to live with his father.

Growing up in Colorado Springs was hard for Hughes, and the conservative, family-oriented focus of the city kept him quiet about his sexuality. It wasn’t until he attended the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs that Hughes began living an honest life. People were generally more “liberal and more open minded” in college, he said, and he felt he could be “who I really was without the fear of ignorant people.”

While he never came out to his father, Hughes believes he knew his son was gay and accepted it. Hughes recalls a specific conversation when he was worrying about life after graduation and was struck by a comment his father made.

“He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what you do or who you are, you always have a place with me,’ ” Hughes said. “I didn’t think about it until after he died…That must have been what he was trying to hint at… I think, deep down, he knew.”

When he told his mother, however, “she disowned me,” he said. He chalks it up to her age and background; “someone who has been raised in a specific mindset, you’re never going to change their beliefs or their stances.” After two years of estrangement, she reached out to him to rebuild the relationship. “I don’t know what turned her around… but she’s coming around very well,” he said.

After graduating from college with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry, Hughes applied to three places: the military, the Peace Corps, and the St. Petersburg Police Department. He was accepted and offered a spot with all three, but ultimately chose the Police Department because of the “warmer weather.”

Hughes encourages everyone to live openly and out, believing that friends and family will come to recognize you as such and be less inclined to vote against gay rights.

“They’re not sitting in the booth thinking they’re voting against gay rights, but thinking I’m voting against Markus’ rights,” he said. This stems from his belief in the positive contact theory – “when you have positive relationships and contacts with someone that doesn’t fit a stereotype, you develop new attributions to that group.”

“If no one knows a gay person, it’s easier to discriminate against them,” he said.

Hughes believes he can make a difference by being honest about who he is through community outreach efforts. “I think that people need to see, especially the younger generation… someone who’s willing to stand up, not be afraid, say who they are and be in the spotlight.”

He has attended 13 of the 14 St. Petersburg LGBT Pride Parades, volunteering for several, working as a recruiter and in 2014 participating as the event commander. One of the highlights of the Pride parades came when Assistant Chief Melanie Bevan, who is also gay, asked Hughes if he would be willing to set up a recruiting booth.

Hughes remembers “people being excited to see the department there in a capacity other than security, and were very thankful for their presence.”

His appointment as the department’s LGBTQ liaison has led to new outreach opportunities within the transgender community specifically. The transgender support groups in St. Petersburg were the first to reach out and contact Hughes after he was announced as liaison.

He was asked to march in and speak at the Transgender Day of Remembrance & Visibility that culminated in a candlelight vigil at City Hall Nov. 20, 2014.  The support group holds monthly meetings; Hughes attempts to attend every couple of months.

“I think it’s important to be there as a member of law enforcement for them to ask questions, or bring up scenarios or whatever they want to do,” he said. “I can talk about a specific topic and just be there as a conduit for them, maybe just give them a little extra voice.”

Ten years from now, Hughes will be eligible to retire, but “will I?” is a question he asks himself.  “Once you hang up that uniform, you’ll never go back,” he said.

He says he remains “cautiously optimistic” about the changes in equal rights for gay men and women and their ability to marry in some states. “It seems like, in 2015, it’s an obvious human rights issue. It’s not a special right or privilege. It’s an equal right, just like what everyone has, nothing more.”

Hughes became engaged to his partner in December 2014. They plan on marrying in 2016.

In addition to being the LGBT Liaison for the Department, Hughes is the mental health liaison, a Leadership St. Petersburg committee member, a mentor at Northeast High School, and a board member of both the Community Action Council for the Westcare Foundation and Leadership St. Petersburg Alumni Association.

You can catch him at the newly opened LGBT Welcome Center at 2227 Central Ave. in St. Petersburg. He plans on spending an hour there at the beginning of his shift every few weeks to “answer questions, talk, or just have a cup of coffee.”

BY SARAH NORCINI
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When LaDai Haywood was a fifth grader, she appeared in a promotional video for her new school, the Academy Prep Center for Education.

Someday, she vowed, she would return to the St. Petersburg private school to show the students they could succeed.

Thirteen years later, she has done just that.

Haywood, who graduated from Academy Prep and then Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa and the University of Central Florida, is back at Academy Prep as a teacher, mentor and role model.

If she had not attended the rigorous St. Petersburg school in grades 5 through 8, her “life would be so different,” she said. Now she glows inwardly “when you can tell that you’ve had a positive influence on the kids, when they have that light bulb moment.”

Since it opened in 1997 at 2301 22nd Ave. S, the school’s mission has been threefold:  provide a rigorous college preparatory curriculum and enriching extracurricular activities for its students, then give them ongoing support during their high school and college years.

Then as now, the school is designed to break what development manager Jocelyn Lister calls “the cycle of generational poverty.” It serves students whose families live below the poverty line in a part of the city where less than half the adults have a high school diploma.

The school, which is funded by donations from individuals and corporations, is open six days a week, 11 hours a day for 11 months of the year. For its first three years, it served only boys. Then in 2000, it began admitting girls.

That was the year that Haywood, now 24, entered the school. It was the idea of her parents, Paul and Daynette Haywood, she said. In public school, she was a straight A student – “bright but I needed a challenge.”

Academy Prep gave her that challenge over the next four years. It also propelled her to high school at the prestigious Berkeley Prep in Tampa, where she thrived academically and competed in the long jump for the track team, and then the University of Central Florida.

At UCF, Haywood got a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, with concentrations in life sciences and education. She minored in African-American studies.

Her love of science translated into her first job in 2013, as a teacher back at Academy Prep. She teaches math, but there’s more to her day than teaching.

She is one of seven Academy Prep teachers who are there as part of the federal  AmeriCorps program, which provides public-service jobs for young adults in schools, nonprofit organizations, public agencies and faith-based groups around the country.

At Academy Prep, the AmeriCorps teachers live on campus – it’s suggested but not required, Haywood said – while getting a monthly stipend, a biweekly food allowance and an academic scholarship at the end of the year.

A typical day for Haywood begins at 7 a.m., when she and the other AmeriCorps teachers help serve breakfast and supervise the students.

She has no class during first period, so she prepares lesson plans, helps another teacher or does administrative tasks. During second period she teaches fifth- and sixth-grade math. Then there’s another free period, followed by recess and lunch, when two AmeriCorps teachers serve the meal and the others supervise. A free period follows, then two supplementary math classes and an enrichment period (yoga, knitting and book club). She also supervises golf and tennis.

The school day finishes with study hall. At 6 p.m. – 11 hours after she started – Haywood is done.

At the end of the day, Haywood said, she is glad she lives where she works. She “can just go upstairs” and “vent” with the other teachers.

On alternating Saturdays, the students have enrichment activities and field trips. As a student, Haywood’s favorite field trips were sailing and going to a Dale Chihuly glass art exhibit and a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

As a teacher, her favorite field trips have been various museums, a local science center and a beach clean-up.

Haywood said she appreciates the opportunities for students in the school’s new science, technology, engineering and mathematics lab at the school. “Kids are going to be the future.”

In the years ahead, she said, she would like to stay in the education field. She wants to work with students, she said, but after this experience she is ready to branch out.

“I feel like I can do anything.”

Photos and story BY CANDICE RESHEF
NNB Student Reporter

In many black churches, faith meets fashion atop the heads of female worshippers. Fancy, colorful hats are a fixture in sanctuaries everywhere, especially for older women and especially on Easter and Mother’s Day.

The congregation at St. Petersburg’s Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church at 955 20th St. S calls Easter “Resurrection Day.” In an effort to be welcoming to the community, the church also calls it “Casual Sunday”—no need to dress in Sunday best to enter this house of the Lord.

But even on Casual Sunday, the tradition of the Sunday hat endures.

It is said that the tradition goes back to slavery days, when women made humble, makeshift hats as they tried to dress their best when presenting themselves to the Lord.

In the decades that followed, Sunday was the day of the week when women who worked as maids and nannies could shed their drab work clothes for a snappy outfit accented by a colorful hat, or “crown.”

In their book Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats, photographer Michael Cunningham and journalist Craig Marberry say today’s hats range from yard sale bargains to flamboyant pieces that cost hundreds of dollars.

There are even hat rules, say Cunningham and Marberry.

 

First, a hat should not be wider than your shoulders.

If there are feathers, they should not be broken or bent.

On Easter, it is best to wear white, cream or pastels.

A chapel veil gives the wearer a demure look.

Fashion-conscious men like hats, too.

Even little ones look cute in caps.

The author Deirdre Guion has a name for the Sunday tradition: “hattitude.”

“There’s a little more strut in your carriage when you wear a nice hat,” says Guion. “There’s something special about you.”

Information from “Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats” by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry was used in this report.

Photos and story BY TONI DEFOREST
NNB Student Reporter

In 18 years at the Tampa Bay Times, John Pendygraft and his cameras have covered some of the biggest stories of the era – hurricane in New Orleans, tsunami in Asia, earthquake in Haiti, friction in the Middle East. But turmoil in the newspaper industry and deep budget cuts at the Times keep Pendygraft, 44, closer to home these days.

One day last month began with the light of his life, 3-year-old daughter Isadora. She doesn’t want to leave for school just yet. She would rather play with daddy and her imaginary lion. Eventually, both daughter and lion are loaded into the car for school.

“She squirts happy hormones into my brain,” Pendygraft says with a smile.

When he arrives at the office, he checks in with the boss, chats briefly with colleagues and reads his email. The morning’s assignment, he says, is a group of women in St. Pete Beach who are making a quilt.

The quilt is actually a 70-pound, pearl-covered tablecloth that hostess Maria Saraceno and a group of friends have been sewing since 2004. They consider the project a symbol of community and unity, and they hope to use it to raise college money for two financially challenged students.

As the women prepare for work, Pendygraft does, too, checking settings, lighting and focus. Does the shot work from here? Too close? Too far? Wrong angle? Too much light? He bounces around the room like the superhero Flash, quick and decisive, zeroing in on each shot.

Busy fingers put needle and thread through the round tablecloth as the women chat.

Pendygraft takes notes while chatting with Saraceno. Over the sound of many voices, she says the women gather several times a month and talk about politics, religion and current events while they work. “This table is like Switzerland – everything is neutral,” she says. Perhaps this is one reason they call their work “Spontaneous Civility.”

Accuracy is crucial in journalism, so Pendygraft photographs his notes in case he loses them. He’ll tell you this happened to him once.

The house is filled with colorful, intricate artistic creations by Saraceno, 64, who got a master’s in fine arts from the University of South Florida in Tampa in 2005. She likes to show her pieces, she says, but does not like to part with them.

Before he departs, Pendygraft stops to admire more of Saraceno’s work.

When he checks in with the office, Pendygraft gets another assignment: What’s happening on St. Pete Beach during spring break? He parks and walks the beach from the Dolphin Beach Resort to the TradeWinds Island Grand Resort.  Along the way, he kicks off his shoes and wades into the surf to photograph a little ham of an angel. Next, he captures the glee of several boys who ride on Bucky the Shark. A ride costs $4. The record of the day – 60 seconds – went to Avery Tomlinson, 13, of Washington Township, N.J.

After leaving the beach, Pendygraft checks in with the office to let colleagues know his angle for the spring break story. During a lunch stop, he peruses the photos he took, makes his choice and writes a caption, and then transmits them to the paper.

Back at the office, Pendygraft begins scouting stories for tomorrow and the rest of the week. It’s an ongoing process, he says, but one he thoroughly enjoys.

Away from work, he says, he likes to run and swim but mostly just enjoys spending quality time with his wife, Letitia, and daughter. Between his family and his job, he says, “I am happier than I have a right to be.”

Where does he draw inspiration? One source is the famous photographer David Alan Harvey, who once photographed Pendygraft’s hometown of El Paso, Texas. Harvey famously said, “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like” – words Pendygraft has taken to heart. “The message is the story,” he says.

NNB student reporter Mark Wolfenbarger contributed to this report.

Photos and story BY SEAN LEROUX
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG — It all started with beer-battered fish.

While brainstorming about how to improve a seafood dish at St. Petersburg’s Bella Brava restaurant, head chef Ty Weaver decided to batter the fish in beer he brewed himself. It was not long before the restaurant was offering small batches of its own beer to customers.

Weaver soon left his position to become head brewer at 3 Daughters Brewing, which he helped Mike and Leigh Harting, the owners of Bella Brava, open in December 2013. Located in an 18,000-square-foot warehouse at 222 22nd St. S., 3 Daughters is one of several craft beer breweries that have recently popped up in the city’s Warehouse Arts District, with a couple more set to open in coming months.

3 Daughters caught on quickly. A five-minute drive from downtown, it has become a favorite haunt for many of the city’s beer enthusiasts.

A tall grain silo sits behind the brewery. 3 Daughters is one of the area’s few breweries with an on-site silo.

The brewery opened with four fermenters, the equipment that gives beer its alcohol content and carbonation. As business increased, the Hartings bought two more fermenters and await another.

A recently acquired canning machine means the Hartings can distribute their beer to stores throughout neighboring counties. They hope to distribute statewide by the end of the year.

3 Daughters’ distinctive green and yellow cans are now in liquor stores, Publix supermarkets and select gas stations.

Although their canning system is relatively new, the Hartings have distributed kegs of their beer locally for months. Breweries generally have at least one or two guest taps from other breweries, so the Hartings’ brews can be found at many bars and breweries around the bay area.

3 Daughters has an in-house lab to ensure its beers are precisely brewed. The Hartings and two other local brewers – Green Bench and Cigar City Brewing – offer internships to biology students at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. The interns’ responsibilities include taking samples of yeast cultures and checking pH balances.

The brewing area is visible to guests, who can see how complex the brewing process is. The rapidly expanding brewery may get cramped with the continuing addition of new fermenters and canning equipment.

3 Daughters has a variety of games and entertainment – a live entertainment stage, shuffleboard, chess, darts, cornhole, fooseball and ring toss.

If you like souvenirs, you’ve come to the right place. 3 Daughters offers pint glasses, T-shirts, hats, hand-made beer soaps and even growlers if you like the beer enough to take some home.

 

BY SAMANTHA PUTTERMAN
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When a Polish family decided to move some of its distillery business to the United States, there were lots of options.

But Texas was too polluted. Miami was too expensive. Tampa was too crowded.

So when Kozuba & Sons opens its doors in late June, it will be in the Warehouse Arts District in St. Petersburg’s Midtown area.

Though Kozuba is commonly thought to be strictly a vodka distillery, that’s not the priority.

“It’s going to be a whiskey and bourbon distillery primarily,” said Maciej (pronounced Matthias) Kozuba, 38, a partner in the family-run business. “Vodka is going to be one of our products, but it won’t be our flagship.”

The distillery will be housed in a 12,000-square-foot building at 1960 Fifth Ave. S in a once-sagging swath of St. Petersburg that’s now home to art galleries, craft brewers, a monthly flea market and a custom furniture maker with plans to expand. A Sarasota software company is moving its headquarters – and 40 new jobs – into a warehouse four blocks west of the distillery.

Kozuba was established in 2005 in Jablonka, Poland.

The Kozubas first made fruit cordials, moving to vodka five years later. During this time, they still bought spirits – alcoholic beverages produced by distillation – from outside manufacturers since they were not yet able to distill on their own.

“Then in 2012, we bought two stills, copper-made, and started distilling,” Maciej said.

Kozuba is family-owned and operated. Maciej oversees marketing and sales, and his brother, Jakub Kozuba, 32, is in charge of finances and administration. Their father, Zbigniew Kozuba, 64, a biochemist by trade, is the company’s master distiller.

In September 2014, the three families moved to Tampa, but the bay area wasn’t the first place they looked.

Texas was first.

But the state’s over-abundance of distilleries and heavy air pollution, specifically in industrial areas, caused it to fall short.

In fact, the Kozubas’ Poland-based distillery is in the largest lakes region, making it one of the cleanest areas. So Texas was out.

Then they turned to Florida.

“There are over 600 craft distilleries in the United States and there’s, like, 120 or more in the state of Washington alone. In Texas there’s plenty. But in Florida, 10, maybe 12?” said Maciej. “And they are all small, which gives us a huge competitive advantage and a good head start.”

The two contenders: Miami and Tampa.

But Miami’s price tag wasn’t inviting.

“It was too expensive, in terms of potential properties,” Maciej said. “It’s a great market, but we decided it’s not the best place for our kids to grow up.” Maciej has two sons and Jakub has a daughter.

When they were unable to find the right facility in Tampa either, the Kozubas started to look in St. Petersburg.

It wasn’t easy. The industrial zoning the distillery required made it hard to find a suitable location. They were about to give up when their broker, Bob Sampson, ran into his old friend Peter Zant, who with partner Dan Stone happened to own the perfect warehouse.

“It was totally indirect; there was no planning,” said Stone, 42.

The Kozubas plan to spend $1 million on the facility, renovating the building’s shell and surrounding area from scratch.

The establishment will have rooms for production, storage and tasting. A retail store will be adjacent to the distillery.

But the best part is the theme: A journey back in time to the Prohibition era of the 1920s and early ‘30s.

Artwork created for Kozuba by a comic artist in Poland will be transformed into murals scattered throughout the distillery.

Imported Kozuba products will be sold at the distillery.

“All together we are going to have around 500 barrels, made of American oak,” said Maciej.

They have two 600-liter stills. Each batch produces around 60 liters, or 10 percent, of 165-proof spirit. They plan to purchase a third still for gin production alone.

“Gin requires a lot of juniper, which is very aggressive, very aromatic, ” Maciej said. “So when you work with it, everything is very smelly. And you don’t want whiskey to be smelling like juniper.”

The average price for Kozuba’s liquors hovers around 25 to 35 dollars a bottle.

In Poland, its vodka is more expensive than brands like Belvedere, Ciroc and Grey Goose. “The reason why is, first of all, it’s a boutique spirit, hand-made, small batch,” said Maciej. “That’s the most important. Top quality.”

The production begins when the Kozubas buy grain from farmers. Next, it goes through the mashing, fermentation and distillation. It finishes with bottling. Everything happens within the micro-distillery. Instead of buying the raw spirits, they make them.

It will take some time before they can implement this detailed process here.

Poland and Florida are very different places, with very different resources.

“We have different grain. We have different fruit. Weather, temperature, humidity – it will all affect the character of the whiskey and bourbon,” said Maciej.

Distilling in Florida doesn’t necessarily mean the alcohol will be better or worse than Poland – just different.

“It’s going to happen quicker here, for sure,” Maciej said. “When you have higher temperatures, whatever you put in a barrel, the aging process is more intense. The lower the temperature, the process slows down.”

BY SARAH NORCINI
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – The laptop in Officer Bryan Rentas-Pina’s car beeped and the bottom corner flashed red.

Rentas-Pina scrolled through the information on the call: An 8-year-old boy walking home from school never made it.

The officer drove quickly to the school, where he talked to the YMCA after-school program employees there. After a call to the principal, who had left campus for the day, he learned the boy had turned up, safe.

Rentas-Pina, 31 and married, has been with the St. Petersburg Police Department for five years. He moved here from Puerto Rico when he was 12 or 13. He always wanted to be a police officer and was inspired by his uncle, an officer in Puerto Rico.

In his five years as a police officer, he said, the only injury he’s sustained was a cut thumb, which required stitches.

He doesn’t mention a brush with danger in 2014, when he and another officer came under fire during a routine call at a gas station. Rentas-Pina was getting out of his cruiser when he heard three shots and “saw the muzzle flash come toward me,” he testified a year later.

The officers escaped harm. The shooter was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.

Like many St. Petersburg officers, Rentas-Pina lives outside the city – in his case, in Tampa. About 60 percent of the police department’s 524 officers live outside St. Petersburg, and nearly a third live outside Pinellas County, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

“I don’t want to live where I work,” he said. “It’s common in this job.”

The job sees him patrolling District 1, which is roughly the area between First and 54th avenues S between 34th and Fourth streets.

In his district, he said, there are between 14 and 15 officers on patrol at a time and five 10-hour shifts.

Rentas-Pina’s shift is from 2 p.m. to midnight. Officers change shifts every six months, he said. They get Saturday through Monday off for the first three months and Tuesday through Thursday off the next three months.

On most days, he does not go to many calls, he said. But on a recent Tuesday he responded to 15, which “really is a lot.”

The majority of those calls took less than 10 minutes. In nearly every case, another officer joined him. St. Petersburg officers patrol alone, Rentas-Pina said, but additional officers are often dispatched to a call.

The calls ranged from a stolen five dollars to a fight on a street. No matter the call or the outcome, Rentas-Pina had to fill out a report.

He’s done about 2,000 reports over his five-year career, he said. “I’ve probably written (the equivalent of) several books.”

At first, it was difficult to write that much because English is his second language, he said.

He does all his reports on the laptop in his patrol car. He relies heavily on the Internet, from receiving incoming calls to checking his email.

All those tasks are done between calls. Rentas-Pina usually finds a parking lot or – if he’s short on time – while driving to a call.

At some point during his shift, he said, he gets a “40 minute-food break.” During the break, he doesn’t have to respond to calls unless there’s no one else to take them.

For four years, Rentas-Pina drove his own car to the police station and switched to a patrol car for work. Now he can drive his patrol car to and from work.

An officer’s patrol car is essentially a mobile office. Rentas-Pina’s laptop is anchored to the right of the steering wheel, a shotgun is behind the front seats and a riot shield is in the trunk, which he can open with a button on the dashboard.

Rentas-Pina said that he doesn’t like to use the shotgun too much. Once he takes it out, he said, it’s considered being “married to your weapon” since it cannot be stored like a handgun.

During his recent shift, a total of five officers were dispatched to join Rentas-Pina on his calls. At times, they bantered among themselves, but Rentas-Pina said officers must always be alert. The routine can suddenly turn serious.

“Once you put the uniform on,” he said, “all lives are on you.”

BY SARAH NORCINI
NNB Student Reporter

It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday when Creative Loafing’s Meaghan Habuda, 23, arrives at the Mad Beach Craft Brewing Company in Madeira Beach.

She has come for the screening of a new craft beer documentary titled Blood, Sweat and Beer, which is a part of Tampa Bay Beer Week.

The brewery is a large room with a bar on one end and long tables, stools, a stage and TV screens on the other. Habuda finds a seat with the best view of the film.

Over the course of the screening, she takes an occasion note in her red notebook and snaps a few photos – moments in the documentary, the crowd and the two filmmakers.

The 70-minute film tells the stories of breweries in Ocean City, Md., and Braddock, Pa. When it ends, Habuda approaches the filmmakers to let them know who she is and alert them to her upcoming story for CL.

The short story appeared the next day on the CL website. It summarized the documentary and offered information on the filmmakers.

As food and drink editor of Creative Loafing, Habuda says of her job, “I don’t not like anything.” She interned at CL in the summer of 2013, then was hired part time in March 2014. She’s been full time since November.

Creative Loafing, which bills itself as the third largest newspaper in Tampa Bay with a circulation of 50,000, is one of more than a hundred alternative weeklies in the United States.

Alternative weeklies typically cover culture, the arts and local politics in a breezy, irreverent style.

The papers have been hard hit by the Great Recession and digital revolution, and for a time CL was in bankruptcy. The paper now has a new owner, SouthComm Inc. of Nashville, and editor-in-chief David Warner says it is profitable.

The paper’s staff works out of a large room above Spaghetti Warehouse at 1911 N 13th St. in Tampa’s Ybor City.

The room is split between office space and a large open area with a stage where CL hosts parties and public events. The office area is split again, with advertising staff on one side and editorial on the other.

The room is quiet, with several staff members plugged into their laptops via headphones. In the back are the archives, dating back to the 1980s.

CL, which is free, is distributed in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. But Habuda says the staff has an online-first mindset. The staff can do new things online, she says, but can still have a “cool spread” with both print and digital.

Despite the uncertainties buffeting alternative weeklies and mainstream dailies, Habuda believes that journalism isn’t going anywhere.

“Journalism is not allowed to die,” she says.

She doesn’t see alternative newspapers as the future of journalism, however. “Someone needs to report the newsy stuff,” she says. Alt weeklies like CL are a vehicle for people to get away from reality.

Although the CL staff covers current events, she says, they can put their “own spin” on it.

Much as she loves what she does, Habuda says, it’s not what she thought she would end up doing.

She’s always wanted to be in journalism. In high school, she had the “old school traditional expectation” of journalism and wanted to write about corruption, local politics and government – to “take down those bastards with my words.”

While she was studying for a bachelor’s at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, not much changed.

At her current job, Habuda says, she is the youngest of the four editors who report to Warner. She is expected to write three online posts of about 500 words every day.

Habuda is in the office Monday through Wednesday and works from home on Thursday and Friday. The staff’s print deadline is Tuesday, with the print version going out on Thursdays.

She’s not in it for the money, Habuda says; she is just glad she has a job.

She is happy at CL, she says, but doesn’t see this as a long-term position. If a better opportunity came up, she would leave.

No matter what, she wants to remain a journalist.