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Coffee Talk (Tampa)
Tom James: SEC practices 'unacceptable'
Tom James, chairman and chief executive of Raymond James Financial Inc., has issues with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"They see you as the enemy," James told a June 16 joint meeting of Florida Venture Forum and the Tampa Bay chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth.
The financial services executive may be feeling put upon.
Raymond James is awaiting an administrative law judge's decision on whether one of the company's brokerages committed civil fraud. The case against Raymond James Financial Services Inc. is the result of the first civil fraud complaint lodged by the SEC against an investment firm in almost a decade.
The Harvard-educated James says the SEC should act more like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which he believes promotes the banking industry as well as regulates it.
The SEC is fining investment firms for transgressions such as not producing requested electronic mail messages fast enough, according to James. "That's absolutely unacceptable," he says.
Henriquez still ready to do heavy lifting
A term-limited legislator leaving the Florida House of Representatives in 2006 after eight years did some heavy reminiscing for the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa the other day.
Bob Henriquez, D-Tampa, wants to replace Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor, who is eyeing the congressional seat of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis.
Anybody voluntarily standing in the path of Henriquez, nicknamed "Coach" and still built like the Princeton football lineman he once was, had better start pumping iron.
For Henriquez, whose Ivy League education belies his upbringing in the colorful world of West Tampa politics, is a tough campaigner.
Henriquez, 40, recalled his first legislative run when he ousted Republican incumbent Deborah Tamargo.
In fact, the story starts after a Tiger Bay debate back in 1998. Tamargo came up to Henriquez and accused him of exaggerating his ability to bench-press 400 pounds.
By then, Henriquez had had it up to his bulging biceps with a Tamargo campaign that, in the words of a Tampa Tribune editorial, consisted of "cruel, personal, irrelevant attacks."
Henriquez says he calmly replied to Tamargo: "After Tuesday, I'm going to be able to bench-press your desk right out of your office."
Following the election upset, the St. Petersburg Times didn't forget about Henriquez's casual boast. A reporter invited Henriquez at his victory party to rendezvous the next morning with a photographer and a heavy-duty barbell.
Henriquez benched 405 pounds with a couple of spotters from Tampa Catholic High School, where he is now head football coach.
Beware District 1 commission candidates in Hillsborough.
Cracker Barrel pegged
The folksy restaurant chain, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., is being sued over a peg from one of its tabletop brain-teaser games. Yep, it seems a patron 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.
Several years ago Sam Seltzer's Steakhouse was sued in Pinellas courts after a customer broke a tooth on a crouton, one of food items the chain was known for. The chain no longer serves its own croutons. A company spokesman didn't return a telephone call prior to press time.
Coffee Talk wonders if the one-person game will disappear from Cracker Barrel's table tops?
DCA says Downey erred on molester sentence
The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt Downey erred when he sentenced a child molester to a year in jail instead of the minimum of 30 months in prison as the state sentencing guidelines call for.
At the prosecutor's request, the Florida attorney general's office had appealed the downward departure in the sentencing of Todd Munro, 35, who pleaded guilty to molesting a 7-year-old girl on three occasions. At Munro's November sentencing, Downey said he departed from the guidelines because the crime was "an isolated incident."
The three-judge panel ruled there was no evidence to support Downey's decision. It sent the case back to the state court for resentencing, but it also said Munro could withdraw his plea if he chose.
Downey, formerly the criminal administrative judge for the 6th Judicial Circuit, was recently reassigned to civil court after he was accused of sexual harassment and downloading pornography at work, according to reports by the St. Petersburg Times.
Red carpet treatment in a warehouse
Tampa lawyer Cody Fowler Davis and Finn Caspersen, Beneficial Corp.'s former chairman, rolled out the red carpet for guests during the recent grand opening of their warehouse renovation project in the Channel District. Their investment group bought the 20,630-square-foot building in 2003 for a steal of a deal - about $48 a square foot. Now nearby properties average from $60 to $80 a square foot - sometimes just for vacant land.
The invitation-only event, replete with limousine service to and from an off-site parking lot, catering services and a jazz band, attracted many of the area's most prolific developers. Ken Stoltenberg, partner in the Grand Central at Kennedy mixed-used condo project, attended. So did Roger Gatewood, the controlling interest in the Seaboard Square mixed-use condo project.
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