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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana)
Roaring Toyz to roar into national bike show
Could a small sport bike shop in Sarasota be the next Orange County Choppers?
Roaring Toyz Inc., the 6-year-old brainstorm of national motorcycle bike-racer Robert Fisher, is going to get some national exposure for its crotch-rocket customization business. The Sarasota business, which operates from a 5,000-square-foot warehouse on 12th Street, is one of six custom motorcycle shops selected from around the nation to compete this weekend (June 25-26) in the first SportBike Biker Build-off at the Second Annual West Palm Beach Bike Show.
The idea behind the build-off and Fisher's Roaring Toyz business is to extend the customization mania sweeping the Harley/muscle-motorcycle style industry to sport bikes.
Two other Florida custom shops are competing against Roaring Toyz.
"This is more of an East Coast trend," Fisher says. "One guy is in Miami and another is from Orlando."
About 40,000 fans are expected to attend the show, which will be broadcast nationally on the Discovery Channel as well.
Rushing takes top honor
Karen Rushing, clerk of the circuit court and comptroller for Sarasota County, received the President's Clerk of the Year Award from the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers at the organization's annual summer conference in Ponte Vedra. The award is the highest honor an elected clerk of court can receive from his or her peers and is presented to a clerk who has exhibited outstanding leadership skills.
According to association officials, Rushing received the award for her ability to balance the integrity of the clerk's office, with its vast array of associated duties and the office's role of serving both the judiciary and the county commission.
The association also elected Rushing to the post of association second vice president for the upcoming year. Rushing has served as Sarasota County's clerk since 1987.
It's a done deal, almost
The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice is going to be a landholder real soon. Technically speaking, it's a supporting organization of the foundation Gulf Coast Strategic Investments - whose board voted Wednesday, June 22, to buy 146 acres on Laurel Road. Closing is set for June 30. The $16 million deal with current landowners Mark and Paula Caithness is envisioned as the first land trust development in Sarasota County.
At its June 22 meeting, Gulf Coast Strategic Investment's board also agreed to finance the purchase through a line of credit with Northern Trust. The board already has a contract with attorney Andrew J. Britton, a former member of the foundation's board of directors, to represent the supporting organization at closing and to handle the title work.
"This has been a really condensed time frame," says Teri Hansen, the foundation's chief executive officer and president and chair of the Gulf Coast Strategic Investments. "This is not something we had 90 days to sit back and ponder. We had to do our due diligence and be ready to close. We are in a process of determining a process to choose a development partner."
Hansen says once the foundation's supporting organization owns the property, the foundation and it will look closer at the eventual development cost and business organization.
"This is about creating choices for working families," Hansen says. "We had someone come down from Michigan that accepted a marketing resource associate job with us. After three days of working with a Realtor, she said she had to decline because it would end up costing her more money to take the job. Just about every business has a story like ours."
Cracker Barrel pegged
The folksy restaurant chain, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., is being sued over a peg from one of its tabletop brainteaser games. Yep, it seems a patron in the restaurant slipped and fell on an errant peg.
Now Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. is accused of negligence and faces damages of more than $15,000 in a federal lawsuit brought by Miami attorney Joel Kaplan. The complaint alleges Joanne Lykens suffered permanent damage in the Nov. 16, 2003 fall at the Seffner Cracker Barrel.
What's next? Will the peg game disappear from Cracker Barrel's tabletops?
Concrete solution: Mexico?
The Associated General Contractors of America has called on U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to intervene in the increasingly dire shortage of cement in the United States before major economic disruptions occur.
AGC officials say they have numerous reports from contractors and concrete suppliers nationwide documenting quotas, delays and possible layoffs due to cement shortages in at least 10 states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Florida.
"What makes these reports especially alarming is that they are coming at the beginning of the high-demand season for cement, meaning more severe problems are almost certain in the near future," says AGC CEO Stephen E. Sandherr. The association asked the secretary to conclude agreements with domestic cement producers to suspend the anti-dumping duty on Mexican cement to reduce the forecasted supply crisis.
Correction
A report in the Review's June 17-23 edition should have stated that S.S. Appel & Co. plans to develop a second 80,000-square-foot retail development at the northwest corner of Town Center Parkway and Natures Way in Lakewood Ranch.
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