The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 153

a -r 1 QUrmmfl-mi Onnrn Thursday, January 12, 1995 THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Tension mounts over policing issue draw his offer if the issue went to someone's picture on it, especially the sheriff of Pinellas County, I would have noticed it." White also is upset that Rice There's been a lot of misinformation already said. Defenders of the police department will launch a "camDaien offear" if the city commission passes the issue nn to residents to decide a snrine vote. Rice said. But Dunedin's police chief, Richard White, said Rice is the jobs as deputies to all Dunedin police officers. Rice said Wednesday the current ill will wouldn't prevent a smooth takeover at the police de partment.

But, if the issue lingered a few months until a citywide vote, the ill will would be too much. "It needs to be put to rest next week," he said. Mayor Tom Anderson said he wants to settle the issue. "I hope we make a decision at the next meeting There's been a lot of turmoil." Anderson said he was surprised to learn Rice would with a public vote. City Commissioner John Doglione said he was surprised, too.

Rice said it would be inappropriate for him to be in the campaigning position that a citywide vote would create. Rice notes that Dunedin asked him to draft a contract proposal. "I didn't invite myself into Dunedin." A police study estimates the city could save $4.5 million to $7.2 million in the next four years if it abolished its police force and hired the sheriffs department. By JOHN LAWSON III Tribune Staff Writer DUNEDIN Officials were left scratching their heads Wednesday as the squabbling intensified in the stir over whether the sheriff should handle policing in the city. Sheriff Everett Rice complained he's been dragged into a volatile city debate.

He said he'll withdraw his proposal to take over policing if there's a citywide vote to decide the issue. That's an understandable position, City Commissioner Jack St. Arnold said Wednesday. "He's simply tired of our squabbling." NEIL I Cote -M i described the police department as "out of control." Rice cited a police officer who called Mayor Tom Anderson a "scumbag" after Vrancorous meeting on the police issue. "This police department is not now, nor has it ever been, out of control," White said.

The proposed contract between the sheriff and Dunedin is slated to be discussed at a Jan. 19 city commission meeting. The contract says the sheriff will offer Preferring one doing the squabbling. White disputed Rice's contention that officers have his picture on a dartboard at the Dunedin Police Department. "I would like an opportunity to speak with the sheriff on this issue," White said.

think if there were a dartboard up with Plaza could boast string of superstores plaza, major renovations will begin, per-! haps this fall. Fusco officials said they hope for a spring 1996 grand opening. The Missouri Avenue corridor once, was home to Sears and to JCPenney, which is leaving Sunshine Mall this month. But many merchants have fled east to Clearwater and Countryside; malls, and some brokers have questioned whether Missouri Avenue is still a viable area for retail. Fusco commissioned a study to look: at the area's demographics, household expenditures, traffic patterns and other factors.

And that market study indicates the area will support a string of super-stores, Strecker said. "The market never goes away," said Ken Mamula, president of Florida-Southeast Development which performed the study and will oversee the renovation. "It just changes." Strecker said he is negotiating with JCPenney to return to Sunshine Plaza with a smaller version of its store. "If we don't get them, we'll get another junior department store," Strecker said. Fusco had been hamstrung while it waited for leases at the dingy, 80-space mall to expire.

"We had to wait their leases out and get it to be a manageable thing where we could do this conversion," Strecker said. By JIM RILEY Tribune Staff Writer CLEARWATER Several new superstores could be headed to Clearwater's Sunshine Mall as the struggling center launches $10 million in renovations and changes its name to Sunshine Plaza. Officials with Connecticut-based mall owner Fusco Corp. confirmed Wednesday the mall will be gutted and reborn as a "power strip," or a string of superstores. Phar-Mor and Office Depot are expected to remain.

Small merchants, who have dwindled in number from 80 to about 20, will be relocated to a central hallway. The remaining area will be renovated into six to eight large spaces. "The whole industry is evolving into superstores," said Fusco executive Paul Strecker. No leases have been signed, but possibilities include a baby superstore, a pet food warehouse, a beach-oriented sporting goods store, a housewares store or a giant bookstore. There also are electronics and appliance superstores that want to challenge Circuit City's position in the Tampa Bay market that might consider locating in Sunshine Plaza.

Once enough new retailers have signed letters of intent to come to the VI i Miller Time to the NHL ST. PETERSBURG Last month, while Christmas shopping at a New Hampshire mall, I wound up standing for an hour next to an aisle booth, watching on VCR a homemade tape of the best Boston Bruins fights of the 1980s. Brought back some memories. Jay Miller vs. Chris Nilan.

Jay Miller vs. John Kor-dic. Jay Miller vs. Lindy Ruff. Jay Miller vs.

Dave Brown. The names probably don't mean anything to you, but as you might derive, Jay Miller was some kind of fighter. He didn't do much more than that. Most any time he was on the ice, it was either to start or finish trouble. Settled a lot of scores although he scored very few goals.

Dovish commentators droned that the National Hockey League would never be taken seriously as long as Miller and other goons played. Even the then-mayor of Boston, Ray Flynn, yapped on behalf of love, peace and sportsmanship after a particularly nasty Boston-Montreal game in which Miller drubbed one Hab and had to be restrained from going after the entire team. You just can't sell such a game, hockey's detractors would say. No TV network will give it a contract. Not even the one that just a few years earlier showed "The Dukes of Hazard." My attitude then: So be it.

My attitude now: I miss the old days. Those were the days Yep, I do. I miss the days when the NHL wasn't obsessed at being a major' league sport at the expense of the very qualities that made it special. And I'm not just talking about fighting, although if it turned off some would-be fans, that was OK. For years, the league got by just fine without them.

As recently as the late 1980s, the NHL was a generally well-run 23-team league that turned a modest profit, played to near capacity and had strong regional followings. A major league sport without the major league problems that caused strikes in baseball and football. But the hockey kris-has just had to be in the same league as the others. So they expanded. And expanded.

And expanded some more. And pursued every silly gimmick to market the game in what had been non-hockey locales. Five new teams in just three years. A salary scale that threatens the existence of most Canadian teams. An 84-game regular season which exhausts players before the playoffs begin.

Playoffs well into the month of June. Four 60-second TV timeouts per period, which interrupts the flow of the game. That insipid "we will, we will rock you" blaring during the timeouts. On-ice advertising. Constant talk about planting new puckl-ings in Atlanta or Phoenix or Houston or all of the above.

Never mind that with each expansion, the talent pool gets drained because the majority of players come from the sparsely populated nation of Canada, V-ft! Mmh -4 i Li' s- I i -IS: Jill i St. Pete duplex owner fined $1,500 for fatal fire 1 Bobbv Crawford. 44, the father of two L'-i V--- iv 1 y. "i i' of the boys, and Betty Livingston, 41, the mother of the other boy, died in the fire. One of the children, 6-year-old Byron Crawford, was severely burned; the other boys were treated for smoke inhalation.

Robert Lambert, who lives in the second-floor apartment, also suffered smoke inhalation. Becker was slapped with fines totaling $1,500, or $500 for each of the three violations, the maximum allowed under the fire code. The violations are: The burglar bars on the door could only be opened from inside with a key. Burglar bars on the first-floor apartment's windows, considered a sec-See OWNER'S, Page 3 By STEPHEN THOMPSON Tribune Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG The owner of a duplex where two people died in a fire was cited Wednesday for three state code violations two related to burglar bars that prevented tenants from escaping.

Arthur Becker rents the two-story building at 3605 y2 22nd Ave. S. Investigators say one or more of the three boys who lived there were playing on a bed with a cigarette lighter when the blaze broke out last Thursday. As their parents lay dead or dying inside, the frantic boys reached through burglar bars at the entrance of the first-floor apartment. The bars would not open because no one had the key; seven minutes elapsed before the children were rescued.

r. i It BRUCE HOSKINGTnbune photo On the building block Doug McCain of Hardaway Construe- project began in July anc I will contm- tion uses a torch recently on what ue through July 1996. The bridge is be part of the new Clearwater one of nine in Pinellas to be repaired Pass bridge. The $10.9 million bridge or replaced over the next two years. Clearwater withdraws i.

grant for video shows -Ui- rflf Deptula's warning that the event he was going to is not a tourism 1 1 i Ml Fit n. By CHERYL WALDRIP Tribune Staff Writer CLEARWATER Delighted by a furniture mover's plan to sell his videos of Clearwater at a Las Vegas convention later this month, city commissioners agreed to give him $2,400 for convention entry fees. They wound up undoing their deed two days later, after a bit of research uncovered videos of bare buns which are illegal on Clearwater's beach. On Jan. 3, commissioners approved the expense 4-1, even though they had never seen Robert B.

Gardeski's video show. They disregarded City Manager Betty conference. Even so, Commissioner Fred Thomas was all for it, as long as the half-hour show "Gulf Boulevard" which airs locally on Sunday afternoon cable television would be renamed "Clearwater Besch "I think it's just fabulous," he said. "This is like gold lying in your lap here. I commend you," he told Gardeski.

Later, Thomas said he wouldn't mind eventually sponsoring Gardeski's shows with public money. See CLEARWATER, Page 3 Discussion helps light up kids' minds By LESLEY COLLINS Tribune Staff Writer PALM HARBOR Don Comeau's seventh-grade students already are wise to the slick cigarette ads they see in magazines and on billboards. "The people are always happy, smiling," one Carwise Middle School student said. "They have shiny white teeth," added another. "You don't even notice the cigarette," explained a third student.

"You just want to be like them." Some 375 Carwise students hope their signatures on a recent nationwide petition will convince federal officials to ban cigarette marketing that influences children. Seventh-graders from Georgia, Washington, D.C., and Virginia delivered the first batch of petition signatures to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and congressional leaders Wednesday. The petition urges the FDA to regulate tobacco products including advertising without banning them. Comeau's social studies classes launched into a discussion about See DISCUSSION, Page 4 which can produce oniy so many suyc-stars.

Let the games begin? Almost didn't have a 1994-1995 season. More than half was lost before the players and owners finally reached some kind of agreement Wednesday. When it happened, Commissioner Gary Bettman said his intention was "take this league to the great heights that it can come to." Great heights as in what? As in interrupting the 1997-1998 season so NHL'ers can compete in the Olympics? Got to sell NHL-licensed T-shirts overseas, and open the door to future TV possibilities. Wasnt that the NBA's real reason for competing the 1992 games? Uh huh. Monkey see, monkey do.

Never mind that the Olympics never were supposed to be for pros. Never mind that had this been done in 1980, there would have been no Miracle on Ice. Nowadays, it's about bucks, not pucks. The rest is conversation. Wasn't like this in the not-too-distant past.

Before the players got greedy, which caused the owners to get greedy, which caused the players to get even greedier and so on. It's a never-ending spiral. The NHL can't stand good times any more than it could stand the bad times. Well it would be better off if had stayed unpopular. As it was in Jay Millers era-Nowadays, Jay wouldn't last.

Players who instigate fights get game misconducts. This born-again progressive, politically correct league wants to clean up its image. But in his most psychotic moments, Jay Miller never hurt hockey as much as the new breed in charge. SYou can reach Neil Cote through 3 Prodigy E-mail at TRIB03C; through the Internet at TRIB03CPRODIGY.COM; or call Elsewhere HAPPY TIMES: The National Hockey League's labor settlement is good news for St. Petersburg's economy.

Sports GAMBLING PLAN: Pari-mutuel interests may seek approval of card rooms and video poker terminals at the state's dog and horse tracks and jai alai frontons. FloridaMetro FRED FOXTribune photo Seventh-grader Chris Lenox, 13, raises his hand in Don Comeau's class during a discussion about smoking and cigarette advertising geared toward younger people. MUSEUM DEBUTS: Florida International Museum opened Wednesday with much fanfare. FloridaMetro (813).