Sarasota Memorial Day Parade 2013: What You Need to Know

Wondering about parking and the schedule of events for Monday's downtown parade? We've got you covered.

Weekly Tails From Southeastern Guide Dogs

Southeastern Guide Dogs is in Sarasota too!

Typically this column talks about the goings on at Southeastern Guide Dogs’ Palmetto Campus. But this week, we wanted to turn the focus south to our Sarasota location.

September 2010 saw the expansion of Southeastern Guide Dogs into a new area: Sarasota.  Southeastern took over the building formerly inhabited by Scoop Management, where, unfortunately a number of locals were the victims of Art Nadal’s nefarious business practices.  And really, what better way to change the karma in a building than making it the home base of a non-profit? Southeastern Guide Dogs Sarasota Training Center and Dog Boutique now serves as a place where the general public can come and learn about guide dogs and the amazing work they do.  A new program is launching April 10th that will allow participants to “Shadow a Guide Dog Trainer.”  This fun, informative weekly workshop will explain the methods used to train guide dogs and …

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New Year’s Eve Pineapple Drop Returns To Downtown Sarasota

The popular street party returns after taking last year off.

Every Sarasotan’s favorite street party plans to make a triumphant return to downtown on New Year’s Eve. The popular Pineapple Drop, which marked the start of the New Year for quite some time, was sorely missed by its fans in 2011. Original festival creator Ernie Ritz, who 2012 Pineapple Drop’s organizer Rich Swier calls a true "Sarasota lover of the city," was not able to make it happen last year. For this year, he wanted to still be involved with the event, just on a smaller scale. Swier and his associates picked up the ball, and he says he thinks the 2012 event will be better than ever—with a large part of it focusing on music. “We really got local musicians involved and lots of local artists,” he said. “It will have more of a festival …

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Should Downtown Sarasota Have An Entertainment Zone?

Zone could define where outdoor amplified music is allowed.

On the way to figure out how to sort out how much sound is allowed downtown, City Commissioner Paul Caragiulo ran into a funny thing.  It turns out that while folks at a during an Oct. 17 community meeting concentrated on all sorts of sound emanating from bars and restaurants indoors and outside, the noise ordinance isn't enough to resolve the issue. The zoning code for the downtown core doesn't even allow outdoor amplified sound. "For the most part, speakers— you can't have a speaker outside—period," Caragiulo said at a Tuesday Downtown Improvement District Meeting. Though businesses downtown have long had live music outside with at least a guitar hooked up to an amplifier playing tunes for the bar crowd.  So one way about this is …

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