Longboat Look Back

+ Nov. 20, 1997
• Calling the town’s lawsuit “a sham” and a judge’s ruling unconstitutional, Longboat Key-based Key Club Associates filed a motion in Sarasota County Court last Friday asking that a declaratory judgment permitting construction of a for-profit tennis center on town-owned land be thrown out.

The motion was the second filed within the past month challenging the legality of a court ruling that said the town could lease two acres at the Civic Grove to The Longboat Key Tennis Center Inc. for 20 years without violating the town charter.

+ Nov. 15, 1984
• Arvida Corp., Longboat Key’s major developer, has offered to give the town 34 acres of vacant land east of Gulf of Mexico Drive on the very south end of the Key. The land, which Arvida proposes to restrict for use as a nature preserve and/or landscaped park area, will more than satisfy all of the developer’s future requirements for land donation under the town’s revised Open Space Ordinance and will belong to the town, if accepted, regardless of the outcome of several lawsuits challenging that ordinance.

+ Nov. 17, 1988
• The Publix holiday ad featured a complete turkey dinner with all the trimmings for $17.95, pumpkin custard pie for $1.29, Publix coffee at $1.79 a pound and a special offer for sugar with a coupon — nine cents a pound.

+ Nov. 15, 1990
Vernon Fox and P. H. Shield, of the Committee for Fair Play, survey Whitney Beach where the beach is approximately 600 feet wide. The committee contends no beach nourishment is needed on the beach at the northern end of the key and area residents should not be included in the special taxing district for beach renourishment.