Formula Retail ban on Big Pine Key

There has been plenty of recent discussion about something called a Formula Retail Ban. It may help to define what this means.

Generally Formula Retail refers to Retail business (a business that sells a product retail) that conforms to a Formula as to the name, logo, building design and products sold. Most are Franchises but others such as Publix or Walgreens are company owned. Other big name examples are Burger King, 7-11, Office Max or Home Depot.

This type of ban generally does not include business that provide a service such as H & R Block tax service, Holiday Inn hotels, Century 21 Real Estate, U-Haul Rentals or Service Master carpet cleaning.

This type of ban has kept Walgreens from moving into Islamorada even though they tried to get around it by claiming more than half their revenue is from prescriptions which should have their business considered providing a service.

If a Formula Retail ban is enacted in Big Pine Key it would allow a corporate owned formula business like Bank of America but it would ban a local Big Pine Key couple from opening a Dairy Queen.

You can see all the franchise business types that are and will continue to be allowed to be in Big Pine Key with the ban as it is being discussed. Hotels, Banks, Real Estate, Lawn Service, Accounting and Rental Units.

It is possible to enact a ban that is very specific such as only restaurants or banning only corporate owned business. You can read how such bans are handled in other areas here Formula Business Restrictions.

Let's hear your thoughts on this subject.

Kristen McKenna moving up at University of the Cumberlands

This past weekend, the University of the Cumberlands (formerly Cumberland College) track team competed at DePauw University’s Invitation in Greencastle, IN. Both the men and women’s teams competed well. Overall, the men placed fourth and the women placed 11th.

Pole vaulting for the UC ladies was Kristen McKenna (Big Pine Key, FL) who placed fourth at 3.05 meters. Also participating in the pole vault was Bethany Reinbolt (Searly, AK) who finished in seventh at 2.60 meters. Reese and Smith competed in the long jump. Reese finished in 12th at 4.99 meters and Smith finished 23rd at 4.59 meters. Placing 35th in the shot put for UC was Illyssa Leisure (Sabina, OH) with a throw of 7.32 meters.

Refuge Key to survival of Florida’s tiny key deer

They were miniature deer. Bambis, but not babies. Barely taller than the multicolored chickens skittering around these Lower Keys.

My friend John and I were squatting in front of a dozen endangered Key deer that were foraging on plants and handouts next to the Big Pine Key Lion’s Club. I had extended my hand in an attempt to get closer, also aware that the animals might approach because they thought I had food; near us two Canadian-accented seniors were tossing them popcorn even though feeding the deer is illegal and unhealthy (for the deer).

On Big Pine Key and the surrounding islands live up to 800 Key deer, a subspecies of the white-tailed deer that bound throughout much of North America. These tiny, tawny ruminants weigh about 70 pounds, with does standing only 26 inches high at the shoulders and bucks standing 30 inches high. Scientists theorize that white-tailed deer migrated here when most of the Keys were connected by nature, not by the frenzied Overseas Highway (U.S. 1).

When glaciers from the Wisconsin ice age melted 10,000 years ago, oceans rose and turned Florida’s southern highlands into islands. All creatures that couldn’t swim or fly were stranded. Adapting over the millennia to their small-islands habitat, the species shrank in size. And then came the humans. By 1957, when the 8,600-acre National Key Deer Refuge was established, only 27 Key deer were living.

Two of the animals coyly sauntered toward my outstretched hand then stopped three feet away and stared. One was a fawn, and I guessed the other was its mother. The fawn’s coat was dappled black, gray and white, and its mom’s was light brown. The mom twinkled her nose at me before she and the fawn darted away.

More on Key Deer

Kristen McKenna (Big Pine Key) Pole Vaulting for Cumberland College

Competing in field events for the Patriot ladies in pole vaulting was Kristen McKenna (Big Pine Key, FL), placing 14th at 2.90m. Also pole vaulting was Bethany Reinbolt (Searly, AR), placing 19th at 2.60m. Shari Reese (Knoxville, TN) competed in the long jump, placing 11th with 5.08m. Jessica Smith placed 13th with a jump of 5.01m. McKenna placed 39th with a jump of 3.59m. Competing in the shot put for UC was Illyssa Leisure (Sabina, OH) throwing 6.85m.

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