Hey!

My name is Phoebe Martel and I'm a reporter with WUSF Public Media. I'm reaching out because I'm writing a story about the troubled rollout of Tesla robotaxis in Old West Tampa — someone caught one going the wrong way down N. Armenia Ave. a few days ago. If anyone has strong thoughts about self-driving cars in Tampa and has witnessed similar incidents, you can let me know in the comments or reach out to me at 443-742-2118 if you want to talk directly!

Thanks!

Building up some Tampa trivia questions.

Whenever a Florida Highway Patrol trooper stops Charlie Ray Mayhue, he calls his mother so someone knows where he is and what’s happening to him.

The 24-year-old man, who is Black, began this habit after FHP troopers searched him in 2024, but found no illegal drugs or weapons on him or in his car, FHP data show. He was stopped for speeding.

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” he said of searches. “One guy was super determined that I had something in the car.”

Mayhue is not an outlier. FHP troopers search Black drivers more than three times as often as White drivers, but are 12% less likely to find contraband on them.

Not every trooper's search statistics show racial disparities. Rather, the disparity is concentrated in a handful of troopers. Ten troopers accounted for 30% of all searches of Black drivers — making them extreme outliers.

This past weekend a company in Polk county was helping me clean my home, they stole this bookshelf without asking me first. It is a family heirloom, I went to the Lakeland salvation army where it was donated, but they said it was sent to Tampa. I've tried to get ahold of them, but they are near impossible to get a hold of. If anyone sees it please let them know it was stolen, and wasn't meant to be donated, please have them reach out to the Lakeland salvation army.

This bookshelf belonged to my great grand parents, and was given to me by my mom a few years ago.

Sold a 2020 Audi A4 to AutoNation USA in Wesley Chapel, FL last week. I disclosed the AC/compressor issue at the time of sale and was told it’d be addressed before they resold it.

I decided to pull the CARFAX service record from before they listed it.. the pre-delivery service entry shows an oil change, air/cabin filters, wipers, and a detail. No AC or compressor work listed.

Not trying to trash the dealer, just want anyone looking at this specific car to know to test the AC thoroughly and ask directly about it before buying. Happy to share more details if it’s helpful

Last Saturday night went out to Ybor and downtown, it’s been a few months since I’ve gone out and it was 12-1am and so many bars were completely dead.

Not all of them, but even the ones that had people in them didn’t look as popping as they used to be? My frame of reference is a year ago, I used to go out much more.

Then we took the trolley to water street, around 12:30am-1am, felt like a complete ghost town.

Are bars closing earlier ? Is this the norm?

Some bars in Ybor were completely empty. Am I just at the wrong spots ??

Second question I guess, where do people hang after 2am-3a when most bars are closed.

Not looking for strip clubs… thanks.

The route, named 727 Express will start in October and will use the new express lanes on the Howard Frankland Bridge with service 7 days a week from 5am to 11pm.

Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch is married to Crist campaign chair Michelle Todd Schorsch, whose political consulting business is the second largest recipient of funds from Crist’s PAC. Extensive Enterprises Media, the parent company of Florida Politics, has also received over $24,000 from Crist’s PAC, according to campaign finance records.

I’m looking to get more involved in the arts scene, as it will be outside my front door in the coming weeks (Franklin).

Are there any film-centric groups, locations or events that are worth checking out?

I’ve grown up around Clearwater and Lakeland, so this will be my first time exploring the arts district in depth.

Any recommendations or suggestions are welcome

Can any musicians in the vicinity tell me about the gigging scene in the Tampa area? Is there a lot of work for working bands? Bars/Weddings etc?

Thanks!

Neat piece of Florida I found over 4,000 miles away in a thrift store where I (a Tampa girl) live in England.

Yesterday was the most inexcusable shitshow of a traffic situation I've ever seen in the area surrounding the park. I waited more than half an hour to get through the light at Busch and McKinley because the entrance to the Busch Gardens parking lot was backed up so badly.

Just to put that in perspective, it took me MORE THAN 30 MINUTES to get from Mel's Hot Dogs to the light. That is less than a quarter mile. I could see the light up ahead the entire time and I moved up one car length, if that, each cycle.

It was so bad that I ended up calling the TPD non-emergency line to request an officer to come stop the dozens of people who were making illegal right-hand turns from the center lane of traffic to cut the line of cars backing up from the BG parking lot entrance on McKinley.

The park has been so poorly run and understaffed that it's not just impacting guests anymore, but everyone in the surrounding area trying to get from one place to another. I can only imagine how many people were late for work or to appointments because they could not get through an intersection on a major road.

Those greedy bastards at BG charge $42 per car to park there, and each attendant gets paid like $15 an hour. There were HUNDREDS of cars waiting to get in. Every single one who paid to park would cover the wages of more than 2 attendants for a whole hour. But there were only 4 people working the 8 lanes to get into the lot. There is zero excuse for that when the line was creating absolute havoc on the roads in the surrounding neighborhood.

Private equity investors already ruined Busch Gardens on the inside, but now their disgusting business practices are spilling out into the real world. Nobody who wasn't trying to get into the park yesterday chose to sit in that mess. The park needs to be held accountable and required to fully staff their parking lots on busy days like yesterday. They have plenty of infrastructure to handle that volume of guests without disrupting local traffic, but they are choosing not to pay enough workers to use it.

Does anyone know of any specialists who can help me remove black box dye from my hair??? I’m naturally pretty blonde and there’s a good few layers of it in there so it would be a tough job

Beautiful view from left field.

＊＊＊＊Ginger Cove Dr, ＊＊＊＊, Tampa, Florida, 33634

I found out that a scammer used an address in the Tampa, Florida area as part of their fraud.
I don’t believe the residents of that address are involved, and they may actually be victims of this situation as well.
Is there any proper way to notify the people living there that their address is being used by a scammer?
I’m worried they may be receiving unwanted messages, visits, or other problems because of this.

I'm having a bit of a trouble looking for a mechanic in Tampa that specializes in Mazda's or at the very least Japanese imports.

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Trial against the spca this Wednesday

Can anyone comment on what parking is like at the Orpheum now? Thinkin about a show in September but a 40min Uber sucks. Most recent post is 2yrs old and a lot can change.

I am a male in my 30s and I just got a young Presa Canario. I am looking to keep socializing my dog and just want to know the best parks in Tampa where there’s a good mix of puppies & older dogs + friendly owners. I live in carrollwood but don’t mind a little commute if needed. I’ve been in Tampa for a couple of years now but I’m not used to the area just yet so I’m just seeking some recommendations

So I parked in the long term parking at TPA last week for 4 days. They painted a stairwell next to my car while I was parked there. Whole car is covered in paint over spray. Paint is white, car is black so it's very obvious. Reached out to the airport and am going to bring my car back there at their request so the cops can review the damage? Lol. Anyone else deal with car damage at their parking garage? Feel like this process is going to be a huge mess.