When local Pepsi-Cola executive Donn Vecchie-Campbell pressured the director of the Key West Art & Historical Society (KWAHS) to fire Assistant Director Joe Pais last month because he wrote a column in Key West The Newspaper recommending that brightly-lighted soft drink vending machines be banned in the Historic District, she may have, as they say, cut off her nose.
City Attorney Bob Tischenkel has uncovered two laws already on the books that ban most vending machines in the Historic District.
In a Jan. 3 memo to City Commissioner Harry Bethel— who, in the wake of the Pais firing, had asked that a possible ban be researched— Tischenkel wrote:
"There are a number of regulations that limit vending machines in the Historic District. Since 1991, HARC (Historic Architecture Review Commission) has operated under the Secretary of the Interior Guidelines that prevent vending machines being located where visible from the public way.
"Also, these vending machines act as signs in two different ways: They are prohibited `interior illuminated' signs and most of them are prohibited plastic signs. Vending machines, therefore, are prohibited signs in the Historic District under the HARC Guidelines and the City's Sign Code."
"I would hope that the soft drink companies will now notify the City Manager that they plan to pull their machines out of the Historic District with a timetable when that will be done," Bethel said Wednesday. "Failing that, I will ask that Code Enforcement begin issuing citations.
"This is just another example of laws on the books going unenforced," he said.
In a letter published in the Key West Citizen on Dec. 15, KWAHS Board President Susan Cardenas denied that the Society was pressured by Vecchie-Campbell to fire Pais. But Pais disagreed.
"In a recent meeting with me and my lawyer, she and Director Kevin O'Brien admitted that pressure from Pepsi was the reason I was fired," Pais told KWTN Wednesday. "She just didn't tell the truth in that letter to the Citizen."
O'Brien's abrupt firing of Pais on Dec. 3— several weeks after Pais had announced that he was resigning after 13 years with the Society to accept a job with the State Division of Historic Resources in Tallahassee— set off a firestorm of controversy.
Every newspaper in town— except the Key West Citizen— has editorially condemned the actions of the KWAHS. Citizen Publisher Bill Barry is a KWAHS board member.
One former member of the Society has threatened to boycott future KWAHS fund-raising events unless the firing of Pais is rescinded. Another has called for the mass resignation of the director and the board.
Meanwhile, lawyers for both sides continue to wrangle.
Stay tuned.