Island featured on Discovery Channel

Anna Maria Island will be featured on a Discovery Channel program on Feb. 12 at 7:30 a.m. Florida Travel and Life's Affordable Luxury filmed the 30-minute TV program and took still p

hotographs for Florida Travel and Life magazine last November at Island beaches, the Cortez fishing village, Whitney Beach and Mar Vista Dockside restaurant in Longboat Key, Robinson Preserve and DeSoto National Memorial in northwest Bradenton and the Gamble Mansion in Ellenton. More...

State proposal would void new local fertilizer laws

Proposed state legislation would prevent municipalities from passing new fertilizer ordinances that differ from the state's model ordinance.

House Bill 457 and Senate Bill 606 would require counties and cities located within the watershed of a water body listed as "impaired by nutrients" under Florida law to adopt the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Model Ordinance for Florida Friendly Fertilizer Use on Urban Landscapes.

Those without nutrient-impaired waters would be encouraged, but not required, to adopt the ordinance. More...

Friday Fest returns

ANNA MARIA – Food, refreshments, shopping and dancing are the things that make a fun weekend. Why wait for the weekend when you can do all that on Friday, Feb. 18, from 5 to 10 p.m. at the corner of Pine Avenue and Bay Drive at the first Friday Fest of the season.

Two local bands will provide the live music: Human Condition from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and Bootleg from 7 to 10 p.m. The field is a great place to dance or just listen and watch others enjoy themselves. More...

Cortez festival just around corner

CORTEZ – If you love seafood, sea shanties, sea life or just the sea, the place to be the weekend of Feb. 19-20 is the 29th Annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival.

Cortez will welcome visitors to celebrate its maritime heritage with fresh seafood, live music, nautical arts and crafts, kids' activities and marine life exhibits and talks from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. More...

Bistro replaces Sun House

BRADENTON BEACH – The Sun House restaurant is scheduled to reopen on Feb. 10 with a new menu, new décor, new management and a new name, the Bridge Street Bistro.

Sun House owner Barbara Rodocker was not seeking the change, she said, but "It came together" when Bill Herlihy recently stopped into the restaurant and found what he was looking for. More...

What's next for bay erosion problem?

ANNA MARIA — Property owners on the city's bay side from Bean Point to the Rod&Reel pier are back to square one with badly eroded seawalls and beaches.

Resident Joan Dickinson has been working on the issue for nearly 10 years.

"Every time I think we will get help, we're either told there is this problem or that problem or there's no money, and meanwhile, our homes are threatened," she said. More...

Home invader strikes Cortez

Two men were robbed of their clothing and wallets on Friday, Feb. 4, around 9:30 a.m. by a man who was described as being possibly white with a ski mask, 6"1' tall, thin build with dark pants and armed with a black pistol.

The victims, identified as Edward Smith, a 34-year-old fisherman, and Ian Smith, not related, 26, a carpet installer, were watching television in a home owned by Edward Smith's mother, Carol Smith, at the 4500 block of 101st Street West. More...

Holmes Beach named Tree City USA

HOLMES BEACH – Beautification Board Chair Fred Heger announced at last week's meeting that the city has received its Tree City USA designation.

"I'm proud that the city has received that designation," Mayor Rich Bohnenberger said. "It's a good thing for the city."

Ingrid McClellan, executive director of Keep Manatee Beautiful, has led the effort to have the county and all of its cities designated. She said that Holmes Beach joins Anna Maria, Palmetto, Bradenton and Manatee County. More...

The birth of the public beaches

During the late 1950s it was business as usual at the Manatee County Public Beach with the Bradenton Beach Fire Department holding regular chicken barbecues to raise funds to pay off the debt on the firehouse and the Lions Club holding beef and pork barbecues to raise funds for the playground.

North and south additions to the pavilion were completed. There was a snack bar and dining room with waitress service, music and dancing, a lending library, volleyball and basketball. More...

Take a Matlacha getaway

Matlacha is only a two hour drive from Anna Maria, but for me it's a refreshing getaway, a vacation, a quick immersion into one of Florida's richest natural resources. One look at the map is all it takes to appreciate the setting of this Florida treasure. Located near the southern edge of Charlotte Harbor, it's adjacent to Matlacha Pass, the Burnt Store Bar and Pine Island. It's a great destination for the casual tourist, the dedicated angler or the passionate kayaker. When I travel to Matlacha it's usually to enjoy the vast flats and the excellent sport of chasing tailing redfish with a fly, but there's so much else to enjoy. More...

McMansions on the endangered list?

Are McMansions, those oversize houses that came into fashion during the oversize economic growth of the late 1990s and early 2000s, going the way of McDonald's supersize portions? Could be; recent surveys indicate home buyers are into a "less is more" frame of mind.

After more than 30 years of steady increase, the size of the typical American house appears to be finally leveling off. A study about a year ago by the American Institute of Architects concluded that McMansions are officially out of style. After surveying 500 residential architects the outcome indicated that only 4 percent of their clients were looking for houses with more square footage. More...

MLPs – A different form of equity ownership

Master Limited Partnerships, fondly known as MLPs, have become popular in recent years primarily for their relatively high level of dividend payments and some tax benefits. We'll review some of the pros and cons of this form of equity ownership, including the type of account you should own them in, and some other things to watch out for. More...

Exciting Eat Here Jaguars opening

The Sun sports Game of the Week was an AFC 10-12 year old divisional matchup between the Anna Maria Oyster Bar Dolphins and the Eat Here Jaguars. Both teams with respectable records in the league but always needing that important conference win.

The Eat Here Jaguars' opening drive was just as exciting as the opening of the Island's newest restaurant. The Jag's first drive was capped by Brad Duffman, who took the hand-off and zigzagged, bobbed and weaved and threw a host of defenders for the touchdown. The point after was good when quarterback Jacob Talucci passed to Anthony Cucci and made the score 7-0. On the ensuing drive, a mix-up in the AMOB Dolphins backfield caused a fumble in the end zone and gave the Jaguars a safety, and just like that, the score was 9-0. More...

Clear your head - run in the fog

I never complain about the weather in Florida. Many Midwesterners share my belief that we'll take a Florida summer any day over the humid, stagnant, usually polluted, hot air of the northern climes. My Northern friends are astounded that Florida rarely tops 94 degrees in the summer and is 10 degrees lower on average than the Midwest. Florida always has cooling summer breezes. Give me a predictable hurricane you can almost always outrun over a completely unpredictable tornado and earthquake any day. It takes a couple of years living here to understand that most Florida tornadoes, if they ever touch the ground are mostly rated a tame "1" on the Fujita scale, compared to Midwest monsters rated from "3" to "5." As a former TV tornado chaser, it is a very different ballgame here. More...