Key West city commissioners cautiously began to discuss options to potentially control the number of cruise ships visiting the local port at their meeting on Tuesday night.
City Attorney Shawn Smith told commissioners there are options if DeSantis signs the bill, but the commission on Tuesday was unwilling to take any formal steps on the cruise ship issue until Gov. Ron DeSantis decides whether to sign a transportation bill that would overturn last Novemberâs city of Key West successful referendum capping both ship size and passenger/crew daily disembarkations.
âIf, in fact, we are preempted from acting, that would certainly preclude us from moving forward at Pier B,â he said, referring to the privately-owned Pier B, one of three cruise docking piers in Key West. âHowever, Mallory [Square] and the Outer Mole are city-controlled assets.
Living the island life
The Equator Resort
Key West’s LGBTQ business struggled, but survived. Now they’re ready to welcome you back
The pandemic sadly struck a death knell for many legacy LGBTQ businesses around the country. But fear not Key West fans: The island’s small gay-owned hotels, bars and restaurants struggled over the last year, but they survived and are poised to welcome visitors back, better than ever.
Key West entrepreneur Joe Schroeder owns the gay Bourbon Street Pub and 801 Bourbon Bar complexes as well as the 15-unit gay guesthouse, New Orleans House. He used a mandated three-month closure of hotels in March 2020 to renovate all of his hotel rooms, getting rid of carpet in the rooms and replacing it with wood and other materials that would make it easier to disinfect after a guest leaves.
Key West City Commissioners will dive into a packed, 30-item meeting agenda tonight, May 4.
The agenda is slated to cover big items like recommending changing South Roosevelt Boulevard to one lane each way with a center turning lane; an overview of the fiscal year 2021-22 city budget, where budget workshops are starting this week; and a resolution instructing the city manager to work with members of the Frederick Douglass Black Educators Memorial Project to find an appropriate space in Bahama Village for a museum dedicated to honoring former teachers from The Douglass High School. Those teachers educated generations of Black students from 1871 to 1965, when the schools in Key West and Monroe County were finally desegregated.
A historic landmark and museum filled with curious objects representing the history of Key West.
LOCATED JUST OFF OF MALLORY Square, the historic Custom House was built in 1891 at the height of Key West’s maritime industry as the original customs building, postal service, and district courts. During the Spanish-American War, the Custom House played a central role in the U.S. Navy’s inquiry into the sinking of the USS
Maine in Havana, which led to America formally declaring war on Spain.
In 1932, the building became the property of the U.S. Navy and official headquarters for their Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reconnaissance planes were housed here, where they could easily fly over Cuba and monitor for the presence of nuclear weapons.
People can weigh in by completing a survey linked on the city website at http://www.cityofkeywest-fl.gov.
These community vision workshops are aimed at looking at some short-term projects for the area, including lighting, shade and signage. But weâre also looking for ideas and input regarding longer-term improvements like landscaping, seating, circulation and the possibility of land uses and rezoning.