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State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota’s Performing Arts department will host its Annual Music and Theatre Scholarship Audition Day at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 20, at SCF Bradenton.
Prospective students are invited to audition to receive scholarships for music ensembles and theatre productions for the Fall 2024 semester. Students do not have to be music or theatre majors to be in the ensembles or productions and qualify for scholarships.
Music scholarships are available for Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, Musical Theatre Ensemble, Guitar Ensemble, Jazz Big Band, Jazz Combo, Keyboard, Symphonic Band and SCF Bradenton Symphony Orchestra. Theatre scholarships are available for acting and technical theatre.
Parents of prospective students are also invited to attend and meet the music, music production, and theatre faculty for more information on each of these programs. Additionally, representatives from SCF Admissions, College and Career Success Coaching, and Financial Aid will be present to answer questions and guide the admissions process.
Auditions are by appointment and can be scheduled by contacting the Performing Arts Department at 941-752-5351.
To learn more about SCF’s music and theatre programs, click here:
Calls for service and arrests increased in Sarasota County from 2022 to 2023, according to a recent annual report.
Reports from both the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office and the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office indicate that both agencies are striving to recruit more deputies and civilian staff as the population increases in both counties.
SCSO announced the release of the agency's 2023 Annual Report to the public on Wednesday, providing a snapshot of the agency's work over the past year.
Deputies with SCSO reported 10,143 arrests were processed out of the Sarasota County Jail in 2023, showing a noticeable increase from 9,268 arrests in 2022.
SCSO also saw an increase in the number of weapons recovered from drop points at courthouses — going from 4,322 in 2022 up to 5,876 in 2023.
By contrast, there was a dramatic drop in arrests at Sarasota County courthouses — going from 257 in 2022 to just 45 the following year.
Sarasota County dispatchers fielded more than 700,000 calls for service in 2023, with roughly 298,000 of those calls being emergency calls — both representing an increase from the previous year of roughly 657,000 total calls and about 289,000 emergency calls.
SCSO currently maintains 486 sworn law enforcement officers, 210 corrections officers, and 365 civilian staff. This represents an increase of 23 LEOs from the previous year.
Men told to stop 'jumpscaring' downtown pedestrians
Leaping from the shadows in the darkness of night, two men tell police they were only frightening passersby for fun. This and other Sarasota Police Department reports in this week's Cops Corner.
I see a lot of these so-called 'entertainment centers' in strip malls of Hwy. 41 in Venice and Nokomis. But I read the news all the time and the only arrests I ever see are in Manatee County. Never seen one of these kind of establishments making the news getting busted in Sarasota County. Hmm is that because the ones in Sarasota County are operating legally? Or do officials 'look the other way' because these establishments bring in revenue to the county? What are the appeal of these kind of businesses if they operate 'legally'? If they give away 'prizes' and not cash is that legal?
Bradenton Police investigating illegal gambling at Pour Decisions Saloon
Bradenton Police Department seized several slot machines from a Bradenton business on Wednesday morning following a month-long investigation into suspected illegal gambling.
Several undercover operations were conducted by Bradenton Police detectives and Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents at Pour Decisions Saloon, located at 430 12th St. W., in March 2024.
The business had four arcade-style video slot machines available to customers for illegal gambling. Bradenton Police detectives obtained a search warrant and, with the assistance of the Division of Alcohol, Beverage, and Tobacco, the machines were removed from the business.
None of the customers or employees were arrested, however the investigation is ongoing.
Operating a slot machine without a Florida Gaming Control Commission-issued license is against the law. Business owners could face up to five years in prison and be fined as much as $10,000 per machine for failing to comply with the law.
For more information and answers to frequently asked questions about illegal gambling visit: flgaming.gov/faq. If you’d like to report illegal gambling in Bradenton, call the Bradenton Police Department at 941-932-9300 or submit an anonymous tip to Manatee CrimeStoppers at manateecrimestoppers.com.
This article answers my question as to why I don't read about busts happening to inernet cafes (aka social clubs) in Sarasota County. They 'might' be legal if they don't offer cash prizes, gift cards, (and slot machines). Instead they work around the law by offering diffrerent electronic games with 'sweepstakes' & 'promotions'. Talk about a loophole.....
Over 180 illegal slot machines seized in Wednesday Florida raids. What to know about gambling
There have been a lot of changes in gambling laws in Florida in the last few years, but one thing remains constant: slot machines are illegal unless they're at tribal casinos and pari-mutuels.
That doesn't stop people from trying to use them, though. Local law enforcement has been cracking down on adult arcades (sometimes called internet cafes) because some of the games violated the strict slot machine rules in Florida or offer cash prizes, which are illegal.
On Wednesday, the Florida Gaming Control Commission (FGCC) raided two locations, Coff33 Café and the Social Center in White Springs, seizing "approximately 179 suspected illegal gambling devices, computers, ATMs, and an underdetermined amount of cash," according to a release. Five people were arrested for possession of slot machines and keeping a gambling house, the agency said.
As of July 1, 2022, slot machines or anything resembling them became illegal in Florida except for 15 approved casinos , mostly under tribal control.
What are internet cafes?
Florida permits sweepstakes.
Internet cafes advertise themselves as essentially sweepstakes parlors that offer game "promotions." This allows them to try to work around the state's definition of "games of chance," often comparing their electronic games to something closer to McDonald's Monopoly game.
But a 2013 law banned them from using slot-machine-like computer games, the 2021 law banned slot machines entirely, and internet cafes are not permitted to offer cash or gift-card prizes so many have closed down and the ones remaining keep getting shut down by authorities. Many local governments have banned them due to the high rates of illegal activity and crime that often happen in and around them.
When Mike Masse picks up his 6-year-old daughter, Madisyn, from school at Fruitville Elementary, it isn’t just any Tesla Cybertruck he drives.
That much is obvious, due to the large bullhorns on front and the bullet holes on one side, but its owner also happens to be famous YouTuber Danny Duncan of Englewood.
The owner of Masse Automotive, Mike Masse has served as Duncan's creative manager and fabricator since 2020, modifying and fixing vehicles to aid in Duncan's unusual exploits such as his recent test of the claim that Tesla Cybertrucks are bulletproof.
The results are posted to the Danny Duncan YouTube channel, which has racked up 7.56 million subscribers and 1.922 billion views.
“We come up with these dumb ideas, and we're like, what if that was real? And that's what I do. I make them real,” Masse said.
During an April 9 Sarasota County Commission hearing, the project team planning the redevelopment of Sarasota Square Mall agreed to limit the height of the residential structures on the site to 65 feet, responding to concerns expressed not only by residents of the surrounding area but by Commissioners Neil Rainford and Joe Neunder.
If offices end up going into part of the space designated for residential purposes, they, too, will abide by the 65-foot restriction, Charles D. Bailey III, of the Sarasota firm Williams Parker, told Rainford, who had asked about that.
Bailey had explained that the buildings housing up to 1,200 apartments would have been as tall as 80 or 85 feet.
The very first speaker during the hearing — Lino Cavalia, who lives on Palmer Ranch — had argued against six- and eight-story buildings on the site. “This is totally … incompatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood,” he stressed.
Continuing the trends seen in 2022, the 2023 water quality data for the various bodies that comprise Sarasota Bay show healthy conditions, even in Little Sarasota Bay, which suffered substantially from the effects of Hurricane Ian’s rainfall, David Tomasko, director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (SBEP), told the Sarasota city commissioners on April 1.
“It was bad water quality for about a month,” he noted of Little Sarasota Bay, with Hurricane Ian having dropped 5 to 15 inches of rain on the area in September 2022.
However, it is too soon to predict whether Sarasota County will experience another red tide event this year, he said in response to a question posed by Commissioner Erik Arroyo.
Another hurricane could cause a decline in water quality, Tomasko explained, and the release of water from Lake Okeechobee into the Gulf of Mexico can facilitate red tide events.
Referring to officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Tomasko said, “They have dumped billions of gallons of Lake Okeechobee water out of the Caloosahatchee River. If we do get a red tide,” he continued, “the waters are already primed with a big load of nitrogen.”
IMG Academy will host a career fair on Friday April 12th at the Legacy Hotel from 10 am to 1 p.m.
The school is looking to fill 100 summer positions and another 100 full-time positions.
IMG Academy has openings for jobs in business, athletics, academics and more.
“One of the misconceptions about IMG Academy is that it’s just sports, but from a career standpoint, we offer more than just sports in the career field,” Shea Yates, IMG Academy’s director of recruiting said.
To register for the fair, you can go to IMG Academy’s website:
I know FEMA pulled their 25% discount for flood insurance to areas South of Sarasota County - but I haven't seen anything to indicate they did the same thing for Sarasota County.
Byron Donalds says unpermitted work happened after Hurricane Ian
Lawmakers are now chiming in about the fight between SW Florida leaaders and FEMA.
During his report to his fellow board members this week, Sarasota County Commissioner Neil Rainford won consensus for an upcoming public discussion about the cost to county taxpayers of providing services to what he called “non-citizen aliens.”
Rainford broached the topic by saying that his colleagues should have received both a letter and an email from Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman “that talks a little bit about our flexibility, through our Sheriff’s Department, to assist others as we face immigration impacts.”
The March 20 email exchange, which The Sarasota News Leader obtained through a public records request, showed Rainford contacting Hoffman first.
Rainford wrote, “Our Governor has done an amazing job of working to provide safety and security not only at the United States southern border but also at Floridas [sic] southern border. Based on our conversations your leadership in this area has never wavered. Would you be interested and willing to update the [commission] on some of the great work you’ve done on behalf of our Sheriff’s Office to keep us safe here in Sarasota from some of the illegal activities occurring internationally and at our southern border.”
Hoffman responded, “Yes I would be happy to provide that data. I do want you to know that the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) has looped all Sheriff’s in on the intel reports concerning both our southern border and the most recent influx of Haitian’s attempting to enter primarily through Monroe County and the Florida Keys. Earlier this week I spoke with Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay and indicated to him that if he requested assistance from other sheriffs under our statewide mutual aid agreement I would be willing to send Sarasota County Deputy Sheriffs to Monroe County to assist him with the Haitian issue. He was appreciative and indicated he would let me know whether our personnel were needed".
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