FLORIDA - Away from the million-dollar condominiums and high-rise towers, another sign of metropolitan life is emerging.Gay men and women are thriving in St. Petersburg — whether it’s revitalizing downtown neighborhoods, starting new businesses or mustering a political force. The trend has fueled an economic resurgence in a dozen American cities over the past 15 years.
But in St. Petersburg, a city that historically likes the thought of being a small town, the increasing presence of the gay community has produced awkward interactions:
* A lesbian running for the City Council was publicly criticized at a candidate forum last year for being gay.
* Popular two-term mayor Rick Baker has refused to sign a proclamation recognizing the city’s June gay pride parade. He will not attend the event.
* Local elected leaders, told that marketing the area as “gay-friendly” could be a financial winner, instead worried that the idea could turn off families.
Is St. Petersburg intolerant? Are the city’s elected leaders out of touch with the community, or at least unwilling to accept a part of it? Will gay men and women already here respond, or leave?
St. Petersburg has a clear plan to embrace condominiums and hotel rooms as part of the downtown renaissance. But it is struggling to grasp a part of society accompanying that growth.
“We literally are fighting to be a part of the American dream,” said Bob Sanderson, who is gay and owns Bella Brava, a restaurant downtown. “All we want is the same thing you guys want.”
Here, and growing
The size of the gay community in the Tampa Bay area and across the country has gone largely unmeasured, leaving its clout somewhat in question.
But a recent analysis by the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Caucus found that as many as 150,000 gay men and women live in Hillsborough and Pinellas, about 7.7 percent of the counties’ population. As many as 25,000 people living in St. Petersburg, or about 10 percent of the city population, are gay. That’s twice as many as most anywhere in the state outside South Florida, according to the study.
The community is growing in almost every pocket of the Tampa Bay area: in north Tampa; Hyde Park; in Kenwood west of downtown St. Petersburg; and in and around Gulfport and Kenneth City in south Pinellas.
In Kenwood and the nearby Grand Central District, gay men and lesbians have helped transform once rundown neighborhoods.
Those areas, previously considered unsafe, are now vibrant, said Brian Longstreth, a real estate agent in the Historic Kenwood area.
Longstreth, who organized the city’s gay pride parade in June, said Kenwood is among the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. Last month, it was rewarded as one of the Top 10 Cottage Communities in the country by Cottage Living.
Jerry Keenan and Steve Andrews found their Kenwood home on the same Saturday as the 2005 gay pride parade. The majority of their block is now made up of gay neighbors.
“I chose to live here for a reason,” said Keenan, 47, who knows South Florida would be more accepting than St. Petersburg. “My activism is one person at a time. Maybe being here allows me to help make change happen.”
The gay community’s expansion in and around downtown has been as successful. Bob Devin Jones, a St. Petersburg playwright and actor who is gay, opened a visual and performing arts gallery, the Studio@620, on New Year’s Eve 2004, with the hope of eliminating “sharp demarcations in society.”
“We wanted to do some social heavy lifting,” Jones said. The Studio@620 has become a model for the city. In September, it will be featured during a Florida tourism conference that details the story of St. Petersburg’s resurgent downtown.
“St. Petersburg has become an incredibly creative city,” said Jones, who grew up in Los Angeles. “You are going to attract gay people.”
Sanderson, who with two partners turned Ovo Cafe into Bella Brava last year, said the area grabbed him for the reasons it grabs most people — good weather, great beaches, the arts and city living.
Sanderson’s urban/Italian trattoria has become an instant hit.
“We don’t want to turn this into some gay 'mecca,’ ” said Sanderson, who moved to Pinellas County full time in 1994. “Welcoming doesn’t have to mean we hand out rainbow flags. We’re just normal, everyday people.”
But victories like Sanderson’s have not come without worry.
Ignored, insulted
Some politicians and residents are uneasy or unwilling to acknowledge the contributions of the area’s gay community.
Ronda Storms, a Hillsborough County commissioner who is running for the state Senate, has become a symbol of the tension.
Storms, upset over public library displays that promoted Gay Pride and Lesbian Pride Month, led an effort last year to stop the county from recognizing gay pride.
Months later, she opposed a ban on workplace discrimination of gay employees in the county. And recently, she has said she would work to stop gay couples from being foster parents.
Storms has been praised by evangelical Christians and vilified by the local gay community, becoming a poster child and lightning rod for the two groups, respectively. She did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.
Her rhetoric has helped Tampa earn a reputation as unfriendly to the gay community. St. Petersburg, conversely, has become something of a haven for gay residents.
The city’s gay pride march has grown each year since it started in 2003. It drew 50,000 people in June and is now the largest gay pride event in Florida.
In 2002, St. Petersburg became one of the first 25 cities in the country to pass a Human Rights Ordinance, which bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Last year Darden Rice, a lesbian running for the City Council, lost to an incumbent by just 2,140 votes.
Still, the relationship between the city and the local gay community is distant, and at times, unpleasant. Mayor Baker has created much of the strain, gay community leaders say.
Baker, a Republican and a Baptist, has rarely discussed the local gay community publicly. He will not sign a proclamation recognizing the gay pride parade. Baker also opposed the city’s Human Rights Ordinance.
He has said he does not support the “general agenda” of gay pride events. But he also has said that “people who are gay have made significant contributions to all parts of our city,” and has hired openly gay men and women into his administration.
In brief comments for this story, Baker did little to address the gay community, or his views.
“I think it’s fair to say that there are issues that I probably disagree with virtually anybody on,” Baker said. “Representing somebody does not mean I agree with everybody on every issue.
“My objective continues to be to create a seamless city where people who might have different views on various issues can find ways to work together to make the city advance and continue to grow. I think the city has grown under that philosophy.”
Baker would not discuss the topic further, a decision that in the past has infuriated members of the gay community.
City Council Chairman Bill Foster, a Baker ally who also said he would not attend the gay rights parade because of personal reasons, said Baker is not interested in labels.
“I don’t think you can anymore call us a conservative city as you can a gay pride friendly city,” Foster said. “We’re a mix of all people and cultures, and I think he and I both feel the same way. We’re a friendly city. And basically that’s what we want to be known as.”
Tensions boiling over
Many in the gay community, however, see hypocrisy between Baker’s talk and his actions.
He has spent time and city resources trying to build up the economically depressed black communities in the neighborhoods south of Tropicana Field. Yet he has done nothing to make inroads in the city’s gay community, they say.
On a scale of 1 to 10, Baker is about a three, said Karen Doering , attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has an office in St. Petersburg.
“He’s not openly hateful, but he’s definitely not helpful,” Doering said.
Dan Fiorini, who is gay and owns Fiorini Gallery and Frame, said Baker’s answers are insincere, especially for someone who is as comfortable in the heart of Midtown as he is near his home in the Old Northeast.
“His religious convictions are getting in the way of good public policy,” said Fiorini, 50. “He’s not an extremist, zealot or nut case.”
“He’s measuring it,” said former St. Petersburg Mayor David Fischer, a Democrat who has shied from criticizing Baker on most issues. “It’s about pace. I appreciate the pace he’s going at. It may just not be as fast as everyone wants.”
Others in government also are urging restraint. Two St. Petersburg leaders put the brakes on a marketing study that suggested Pinellas County could become a gay and lesbian tourist destination if it joined other areas that already advertise themselves as gay friendly.
The study, by Community Marketing Inc. of San Francisco, said gay travelers would like St. Petersburg if they were more aware of the community. Too often, respondents said they knew little or nothing about the community.
But if they did, the impact could be significant, said Jerry McHugh with Community Marketing.
Philadelphia has marketed actively to the gay community, from print ads with Betsy Ross sewing a rainbow flag to a television commercial featuring the slogan, “Come to Philadelphia. Get your history straight and your nightlife gay.”
And it has paid off, McHugh said. Gay visitors to Philadelphia spend almost 2½ times more each day and 80 percent more on a hotel than other tourists, McHugh said.
Gay men and lesbians typically travel more often, spend more money and come back more frequently than average tourists, McHugh said.
But Foster and Pinellas County Commission Chairman Ken Welch, who both sit on the county’s Tourist Development Council and are considered potential St. Petersburg mayoral candidates for 2009, have suggested a more cautious approach.
“We want to be a destination that’s open to everyone regardless of orientation,” Welch said during the discussion. “But I’m not sure we need to target groups based on orientation.”
The study also said the gay community might like a clothing-optional beach, something that turned off Foster.
“My citizens are saying we don’t want that. We don’t want to look like South Beach. We don’t want to look like Key West,” Foster said. “We’ve spent 100 years marketing ourselves one way. Why do we want to change?”
But change of some kind may be inevitable.
The evolving downtown that Baker, Foster and others have celebrated has brought with it an increasingly active gay population. St. Petersburg recently was included in Gregory Kompes’ book 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live.
Kompes, who lives in Las Vegas, said St. Petersburg embodies much of what the gay community likes: diverse, historic architecture, beaches and good weather, and a thriving arts community.
“The gay agenda isn’t about changing the way the world works,” Kompes said. “It’s about treating everybody equally.”
Kompes said he is looking to move. St. Petersburg is high on the list.
from The St. Petersburg Times / Aaron Sharockman
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