STORIES OF THE YEAR FROM BACK IN HISTORY

Dennis Reeves Cooper being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel in 2001. Cooper founded the Blue Paper in 1994 and was editor and publisher for 18 years before he retired in 2012.

When I was editor of Key West The Newspaper– the Blue Paper– back in the “old days,” we published a “Story of the Year” feature at the end of each year. Here’s a look back at a few years of those stories.

2000. Our Story of the Year of the year 2000 was the defeat of 20-year incumbent State Attorney Kirk Zuelch at the polls. Few election-watchers thought that could happen. After two decades in the office, Zuelch was thought to be too powerful, too entrenched to get voted out of office. Zuelch was so comfortable in office that he no longer even tried to hide his use of his position to forward the objectives of his powerbroker pals. Selective enforcement of the law was routine. And it was in your face. It was said that Zuelch could even make judges quake beneath their robes. Lawyers with clients facing prosecution by Zuelch’s office often advised their clients to take just about any plea offer coming from the state attorney’s office (SAO) because “the judges do not often rule against Zuelch.”

A PERSONAL NOTE: We here at the Blue Paper were never among Kirk Zuelch’s best friends. For years, we repeatedly published stories that exposed corruption inside the SAO. Less than a year after the voters ousted Zuelch from office in 2000, Key West Police Chief Buz Dillon had me arrested for writing something he didn’t like– and the case went to the SAO for prosecution. New State Attorney Mark Kohl refused to prosecute because, he said, the law Dillon used to have me arrested was unconstitutional. He was right. A couple of years later, a panel of three federal judges did rule 3-0 that the law was, indeed, unconstitutional– and new free speech law was made in Florida. However, had Zuelch still been in office, it is unlikely that he would have made the same decision that Kohl made. In fact, it is quite likely that Zuelch would have enthusiastically gone forward with prosecution. I and my ACLU lawyers would have eventually won in court– but had Zuelch still been in office, things would have been way different for me for a couple of years as the case worked its way through the courts.

2001. One of the more interesting stories of 2001 was that State Attorney Kohl dropped all charges against dozens of women who had been arrested during Fantasy Fest 2000 for showing painted breasts or for flashing unpainted breasts for beads. Cops had apparently gone temporarily insane, making dozens of arrests for a “crime” that had typically been almost ignored by law enforcement during previous Fests– and since. Not only were the women arrested, they were reportedly lined up on benches at the police station, naked from the waist up with their hands cuffed behind their backs for viewing by police officers. The police station is very air conditioned. Got the picture? One of the women who was arrested for showing her breasts had no breasts. She had gone through a double mastectomy several years earlier.

2002. One of the the big stories of 2002 was voter approval for the creation of an independent Citizen Review Board (CRB) to oversee the police department, which at that time was becoming increasingly violent. After the city commission refused to create a CRB, a committee of citizens collected enough voter signatures to get the question on the November ballot and more than 60 percent of voters who went to the polls voted to create a civilian oversight commission.

2003. The City of Key West continued to pay out thousands of dollars in damages to settle police unnecessary force lawsuits. Meanwhile, the seven members of the CRB had been appointed and was set to begin accepting complaints in early 2004.

2004. Whammo bammo! Police Chief Buz Dillon was unceremoniously fired by then-City Manager Julio Avael and thrown out of City Hall like a bag of sour garbage. Other interesting stories of the year included the city’s agreement to pay lap dance parlor owner Christie Sweet $19,500 to settle a lawsuit Sweet had filed after then-City Manager Julio Avael had ordered her business closed because it was too close to a bar (one of the many restrictions placed on adult entertainment establishments by city law at that time). Actually, Sweet’s business was around the corner from a bar and was in compliance with the law. But Avael had ordered the distance between the lap dance parlor and the bar to be measured “as the crow flies.” Also, Sloppy Joe’s Bar sued Capt. Tony’s Bar in 2004, arguing that the claim that Capt. Tony’s was “the first and original Sloppy Joe’s” was false. The lawsuit was eventually settled with the owners of Capt Tony’s agreeing to promote the bar as simply being located in the Greene Street building in which Sloppy Joe’s had originally been located before moving to the present Duval Street location in 1937. Also this year, we reported that charges had been dropped against a woman who had been cited for tossing half a hamburger to a crocodile sunning itself near the Cross Street bridge on Stock Island. The citation had been issued by a state Fish & Wildlife officer, claiming that the woman’s act represented “harassment of a Florida crocodile,” which is a misdemeanor. The woman argued that she had not known about the law and, anyway, the croc seemed to enjoy the burger.

2005. It seems that there is never a shortage of unusual human interest stories to cover in Key West. For example, in 2005, Kathy Eddins’ six-toed cat named Bigfoot made national headlines when he wandered away from his Truman Annex home and was taken in by neighbors.– who, then, wouldn’t give him back. Eddins did finally prevail after a year in court. We also covered other “news of the weird,” like the story of the city employee who stole thousands of dollars in quarters from city parking meters. He stole so much money that, some weeks, his wife and mother had to use carts to haul the quarters to the bank. Other than losing his job– the thief got away with probation because city lawyers couldn’t prove how much money he had stolen. Another story reported that the city had to pay a widow $15,000 after a cemetery employee busted open her deceased husband’s crypt and shoved in another man’s casket. We also reported that a handicapped man sued the Scrub Club adult entertainment establishment to force management to provide wheelchair access to the naked women.