City hall to workers: the next few rounds of drinks are on us
In years past, city employees have received Christmas bonuses in the form of supermarket gift certificates from Publix.

This past Christmas, city hall decided to increase the cheer factor by giving out $50 gift certificates to a local sports bar. Shortly before Christmas, employees noted that $50 had been deducted and then added back to their paycheck statements with taxes taken out on the strange $50 plus and minus transaction. This was followed by the gift of a $50 certificate to Bogey's, a local sports bar owned by political insider Steve Harner. Harner also owns the Crow's Nest Restaurant.

For the $13,000 paid to Bogey's, the city received 325 gift certificates worth $50 each. According to City Finance Director Jeff Snyder, Harner had agreed to discount the total purchase by $3,250. Snyder said no bids had been offered or taken in the process of deciding who to buy this year's gift certificates from.

Since Bogey's is the mayor's favorite watering hole, it seemed fair to ask Mayor Fred Hammett if it had been his decision. Hammett denied it, although he admitted it would be a logical assumption: "I can see why you'd ask that, I'm down there about half of the time."

Hammett stated it was City Manager Marty Black's decision.

Political payback, sobriety, or the true spirit of Christmas?
Meanwhile, several employees have voiced their displeasure. I originally found out about the nature of this year's bonuses from a member of the city's police union who felt that the Christmas gifts were politically motivated. The sentiment expressed was that the employees were being gifted as part of a political payback for Harner's past financial support in the elections of most of the present city council.

Of equal concern was one employee who approached Venice Florida! dot com and complained that the gift of a $50 bar tab was inappropriate: "I'm a recovering alcoholic. Why does Marty Black want me to go into a bar, let alone spend $50 there?"

Several other employees reportedly sold their gift cards for $25 each. At least two others turned their cards back in to city hall, the first time that anything like this has ever happened.

When asked why city hall would give gift certificates for a sports bar to all employees while knowing full well that the city is quite likely giving the cards to at least a few recovering alcoholics, Black defended the action by comparing Bogey's to a Publix supermarket. In an e-mail to Venice Florida! dot com, Black wrote:

"No different than the temptation along the wine kiosks when you first enter Publix, the multiple aisles of wine and mixers they provide - or the beer aisle. By the way, I'm prohibited by state and federal law from inquiring or discussing individual city employee health conditions as are they of any co-workers."
-- Marty Black, e-mail dated 02/05/07

Black also attempted to delineate Bogey's from being a bar, noting that it calls itself a sports pub and restaurant.

"That's inappropriate"
"That's just inappropriate," a local MD who specializes in alcohol and drug addictions told me on condition of anonymity. "I don't know the man [Black] and I don't want to insult him, but as far as the study of addictions go, he's very ignorant."

The physician went on to explain: "Only the very early recovery alcoholic would see those two temptations [a bar and a supermarket] as the same."

According to the doctor, for someone in advanced recovery, walking down the aisles of a supermarket is relatively easy as the primary purpose for going to a supermarket is to shop for food. But a sports bar, even one that serves food as Bogey's does, is an entirely different matter: "It's Christmas, you're with people, you run into friends, you're at a bar, there are enormous peer pressures to have a drink. Anyone who is in advanced recovery and who cares about their sobriety would give or throw the gift cards away rather than face that kind of temptation."

On the upside, the doctor noted that at least the city didn't give out fifths of whiskey. "Some companies do that for their employees."

...and now a word from another doctor, this one named Seuss
For Black, one employee who did give the card back was cause for some disdain and will be treated with future Grinchness as a direct result:

"...if an employee doesn't want the appreciation, they don't have to accept it, they just need to let me know. Right now I have two employees that I know didn't appreciate the gesture and therefore won't receive one in the future. The concerns this year actually now open the door so that not every employee will receive an expression of appreciation in the future and that makes my life much easier."
-- Black, ibid.

Bogey's has become a political hot spot ever since Harner opened it. In fact, Harner was the beneficiary of a favorable land swap deal with the city years back when he needed more parking spots than were available on his property in order to open his doors legally for the first time. City council agreed to let Harner have rights to part of the city-owned alley behind his restaurant in what Venice Taxpayer's League president Herb Levine still refers to as a giveaway. Council defended the action at the time by stating that it was due payback as Harner had given so much to the city.

For Levine, the land swap deal was only part of the problem. Equally problematic, according to Levine, was the use of paid city staff to act as consultants on Harner's behalf on the taxpayer's dime: "It was not only the land swap, there were at least half a dozen full staff meetings in city hall trying to figure out a way for Mr. Harner to get enough parking places at Bogey's so that he could get a liquor license, and this was on top of the land swap. Some people give of their time, some people give to get back a lot more back than they give."

Later, Harner would be rumored to be the favored insider in owning or leasing the restaurant/hotel combo that was to become the airport marina. Although the deal appears to be dead for now, inside information indicated that Harner was locked in to get the official city nod while fellow CQG bud C.J. Fishman (of 'I own city council' fame) was rumored to get the lucrative restaurant furnishing contract. Harner publicly denied that he had an inside deal and it all became a moot point as the whole project crumbled under the weight of negative public opinion.

Don't be surprised if the Intracoastal Waterway marina rears its ugly head again, though. For city manager Black, it still remains as one of the main projects he would like to leave with Venice as part of his legacy.

As to the $50 gift certificates and the $13,000 municipal check to Harner, Levine stated "maybe things haven't changed that much, it's still the same old, same old merry-go-round with the same gold rings for friends."

CQG Headquarters, can I help you?
Bogey's is THE political hot-spot, the unofficial headquarters for the CQG crowd. Former planning commissioner Benny Weaver has his own booth with a designated plaque. So does political insider and local background string-puller, Jack Meyerhoff.

For the uninitiated, the CQG (Citizens for Quality Government) is a PAC largely funded by developers that has been wildly successful in electing a monopolized pro-development city council.

Meyerhoff's infamous lunches are the whispered talk of the town as he daily meets with elected officials and local politicos in hushed lunches in the noisy pub. It's as though Meyerhoff hosts a secret chat show. Who he is having lunch with is often a precursor to who will be in the news or who will get the CQG nod. How much influence Meyerhoff has over local politics and how much he has wielded that influence has always been a murky topic, but it's been clear for a long time that it's more than a little and most likely a lot. One of Meyerhoff's regular lunch buddies of late has been the mayor, as evidenced by the pic at the top of this page showing Meyerhoff getting very chummy with Hizzoner.

Profit margin
While Harner discounted the total sale of the cards, he still made a very tidy profit on the deal. One restaurant manager I spoke with said he would have jumped on the same deal if it had been offered: "We're talking about a 25% to 45% profit margin on the food and an even greater margin on beer and alcohol sales."

That, plus not all of the cards will be used. Some will be lost, some will be forgotten, and that's pure profit. Oh, and the fact that the city bought about 30 or 40 more cards than they have employees. Although Black was asked, he declined to say exactly how many extra cards the city had purchased. He stated those extra cards will be given away in the future to employees as prizes and awards.

If you add in Harner's $3,250 discount, make the assumption that all cards will be used and just go with a modest 35% profit margin, Harner stood to make around $2,500. Include alcohol into the mix and assume 20 cards will be lost and you can probably add in another $2,000 to $3,000. That's not a bad investment at all and it makes up for his annual contributions of $500 to each candidate running for office plus his annual donation of $500 to the developer's PAC, the CQG.

and finally, out of the mouths of babes....
So Christmas was good for Harner, the city's cheer was appreciated and accepted happily.

Meanwhile, at least one city employee was not so cheerful, choosing to retain his self-respect and sobriety even if it meant getting a target painted on his back for unintentionally insulting the top man in city hall.

The most concise assessment on this Christmas debacle? From a child, of course. 11-year-old Marissa, a neighbor of mine, who overheard me talking about a recovering alcoholic getting a $50 gift certificate to a sports bar.

Without knowing anything more than that, Marissa's response was informed, incisive, and immediate: "That's retarded!"

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.