Exploring The Dictates

Justin George on Gene's: Someone sneaks out the side door, and a breeze blows in. The DJ interjects with another message: "Shut the door, baby."

It's an order meant to keep the pounding music inside, but it also represents a dividing line patrons respect. What goes on inside and outside Gene's Bar are separate matters, patrons say.

The police and City Council see it differently. Gene's Bar is Tampa's most notorious wet establishment, and after years of complaints, council members have called for it to be shut down. City officials have grown so tired that they are negotiating to buy the bar in order to put an end to it. They view Gene's as a cocktail glass that swirls with all the problems that take place on its East Tampa corner – 22nd Street and E Mallory Avenue – but customers say the drug deals, shootings and stabbings that have plagued police for years aren't the bar's fault.

"All that's on the outside," said Leroy Daniels, 26, whose forearm is imprinted with a tattooed fist and the name of the projects where he grew up.