Organizers say rising costs prompt cancellation of the Tallahassee event.
By BRADY DENNIS
Published March 31, 2004
Tallahassee always loved it when Ybor City came to visit.
For more than four decades, state lawmakers embraced the annual Ybor City Day Luncheon at the state Capitol. Hundreds of people turned out each year to share Cuban sandwiches, Spanish bean soup, guava pastries and cafe con leche.
A Latin band played. Young women in Spanish dresses danced the flamenco. Legislators lit up cigars. Sam "Red Eye" Leto, one of the Italian patriarchs of Ybor City, strode boisterously around the state Capitol, leading a busload of Tampa natives.
Things have changed.
For the second consecutive year, the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce will not hold the popular event. Instead, it will hold a reception in Tallahassee on April 20 for Hillsborough legislators. It also will participate in the Hillsborough County Day activities scheduled for April 21.
"It just became very cost-prohibitive for us," said Annette DeLisle, president of the Ybor City chamber.
The main reason: Sept. 11, 2001.
DeLisle said the chamber's marketing and sponsorship dollars dwindled to half of what they were before the attacks. At the same time, she said, liability insurance rates for transporting so many people to the state Capitol skyrocketed.
Thus the idea for a smaller reception at the Governor's Club in Tallahassee, to which Hillsborough legislators and their guests are invited.
"We still have the atmosphere," DeLisle said. "We're just not feeding 1,500 people."
State Rep. Sandy Murman, R-Tampa, has fond memories of the annual luncheon.
"Everybody loved the entertainment and the food," she said Tuesday. "Everybody loves Cuban bread and Spanish bean soup. The entertainment was always awesome.
"It really showed what we're made of."
Still, Murman said she's looking forward to Hillsborough County Day on April 21. She thinks it offers a chance to highlight the diversity of the county, from agriculture to the University of South Florida to the Port of Tampa.
"We're really making a bigger splash," she said. "It encompasses more of what's in Hillsborough. We've got a lot to show people."
DeLisle might miss the raucous party that Ybor City helped bring to the state Capitol each year. But she doesn't miss the predawn bus trip, the extensive planning or the high cost of the event.
For now, the reception works just fine.
"It's not the Ybor City Day of old," she said. "(But) we're still up there visiting legislators. We like to add flavor to the halls of the Legislature."
