As any airport traveler can attest, Dade County has some excellent cabbies, and it also has some cretinous loons. With the Super Bowl blitz bearing down on us, the Metro Commission is considering a schedule of fines to penalize taxi drivers for sins against tourists.

These are absolutely real:

• $50 for failure to maintain neat appearance!

• $200 for smoking without the customer's permission.

• $200 for soliciting tips.

• $200 for abusive language.

• $50 if the cab has a broken air conditioner.

• $50 for a dirty trunk.

• $200 for taking the longest route in order to hike up the fare.

• (my personal favorite) $200 if the driver is carrying a deadly weapon.

Currently, taxi industry officials are negotiating the amounts of these fines with the Metro staff. The preliminary plan is all right, as far as it goes. However, the commission needs to expand the list of fines to include other possible taxi-tourist confrontations:

• $200 for charging passengers "per kilo" of luggage.

• $150 for having a body in the trunk.

• $75 for soliciting tips with a deadly weapon.

• $200 for abusing customers in two or more languages.

• $100 for taking the "Homestead By-Pass" to Miami Beach.

• $50 for cleaning livestock on the dashboard without the passenger's permission.

• $75 for asking the customer to give you a back rub and a quick pedicure.

• $50 for hanging more than one soiled undershirt from the antenna.

• $100 for forcing riders to stand up in the back seat so you can "play Popemobile" along Biscayne Boulevard.

• $ 150 for bragging to passengers about the results of your latest urinalysis.

• $75 for failure to scrape slow-footed windshield washers off your grille.

The civil penalties suggested by Metro sound tough, but they won't make our streets any nicer. No sane tourist is going to hang around South Florida long enough (or return at a later date) to testify against a rude cabbie—especially a rude cabbie who carries a gun.

Besides, smart taxi drivers know that they don't have to fleece out-of-town passengers or hustle big tips to make a fortune during Super Bowl Week.

All they've got to do is pick up their customer on game day and head out to Joe Robbie Stadium. It's a gold mine, stuck in that wretched quagmire of traffic, watching the meter run and run and run.

Sometimes, dolphins get wrong idea

February 9, 1990

Add this to the list of bizarre things that South Florida tourists can worry about: getting goosed by Flipper.

Strange but true. It has happened at Florida Keys attractions where customers are allowed to get into the water with captive bottlenose dolphins. Usually the dolphins are well-behaved, but occasionally adult males become sexually aroused and make their intentions known.

This is one reason that Florida's Department of Natural Resources has recommended banning swim-with-the-dolphin programs. In a controversial report to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the DNR says that closing the swim shows will prevent injuries to humans, protect the dolphins from catching human diseases and discourage the taking of the marine mammals from the wild.

Operators of Florida's three attractions—Dolphin Plus in Key Largo, Theater of the Sea in Islamorada and the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key—say the swim programs are educational and harmless.

They are also profitable. Theater of the Sea charges $50 to swim with the dolphins. For another $50 you can buy a videotape of your dolphin encounter.

If you're not careful, that video could be rated X.

Alan Huff of the state marine lab in St. Petersburg says there are no reliable statistics about "negative incidents" at the dolphin parks, but adds: "We do know that older male dolphins become less trainable and exhibit behavior that is undesirable for a swim program." This includes physical aggression as well as sexual overtures.

A Miami legal secretary who was recently accosted said trainers had warned her of the possibility. In the dolphin mating ritual, it's known as an "erection roll." The male flips the female over and … well, you can guess the rest.

Soon after entering the water, the secretary noticed that one of the dolphins was rubbing against her in an unmistakably amorous way. "He liked me a lot," she recalled. Suddenly the animal spun her in the water and swam across her back.

"The guy's yelling, 'Roll with it! Roll with it!' I'm going, 'What the hell's going on? Get him away from me!' I was really scared." It's not easy to say no to 700 pounds of tumescent porpoise.

The swim shows in the Keys forbid customers from grabbing or bothering the dolphins, but sometimes the animals get ideas of their own. They can be aloof, or extremely sociable.

Some animal rights advocates say the mammals are being exploited, which is nothing new. Porpoise shows have been a staple of Florida tourism for decades. Is swimming with a tourist any worse than jumping through a Hula Hoop for a hunk of dead mullet? Probably not.

What's more, doctors have reported great progress among disabled and retarded children who've been allowed to interact with the Keys porpoises.

Getting in the water with these magnificent animals is a thrill, but usually more for the humans than the dolphins. If you were to jump into Biscayne Bay near a wild school, it would most likely head for Bimini. Porpoises remain far less fascinated by us than we are by them.

While there are only four dolphin swim attractions in the country, some experts fear they will proliferate because of the money. Imagine the disaster if every tacky oceanside motel decided to buy a Flipper and invite tourists in for $50 a dip. Fortunately, regulations on the capture and display of marine mammals are fairly strict.

Within a few weeks, the U.S. government will decide what to do about the swim programs. Many feel the DNR's position is too harsh.

For example, Dr. Gregory Bossart, a veterinary pathologist at the Miami Seaquarium, says there is no evidence that diseases can be easily transmitted between dolphins and humans. But he also believes that swim programs must be rigidly controlled and each dolphin carefully selected for participation.

"Some are real friendly, some aren't," he says. "Personally, I would be hesitant about getting in the water with some of the male dolphins I know."

Will we end up swallowing this new tax?

April 2, 1990

Everything you need to know about the latest version of Metro's proposed 2 percent food-and-beverage tax:

Q. Where does the money go?

A. The estimated $3.5 million in annual revenue will go to tourism.

Q. Wait a second. Wasn't part of the tax supposed to pay for a new drug treatment center, and economic redevelopment in the black community?

A. You're thinking of the old tax, the one they screwed up last time. The new tax is just for the tourism industry.

Q. Why do we need a tax to promote that?

A. The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau says the money is necessary to finance a national advertising campaign to attract more tourists to South Florida ...

Q. Wait a second. The convention bureau—isn't that the same bunch who spent $^00,000 moving into lavish new offices?

A. Well, yeah—

Q. The same bunch who spent $270,000 on a fish-tank display at a travel convention in Budapest?

A. Hey, it was a very impressive fish tank—

Q. The same bunch who was literally going broke this time last year, borrowing $ i million to cover their red ink? And the top guy, George Kirkland—wasn't he the one who charged the bureau for $i,ooo-a-night hotel rooms in Europe?

A. Yeah, but—

Q. Well, no wonder they need the dough.