Whatever horrors might appear on the TV screen at six and eleven, these intrepid travelers won't waste their precious vacations cowering in a $150 hotel room. They will put on bright telltale clothes. They will go outdoors. They will spend money.

Unless they've been living in a cave for the last 15 years, would-be tourists are well aware that Florida has guns, drugs, nuts and social unrest. To shield them completely from the daily flow, hotels would be forced to zap all local news off the cable.

Channel 7 merely offers a more elaborate smorgasbord than the others. Sure, it's everything the critics say it is—sensationalistic, lubricious and irresponsibly gruesome. If Jeffrey Dahmer lived here, Channel 7 undoubtedly would be his favorite station.

Yet its hard-gore news format has drawn good ratings, worldwide press attention and imitators around the country. Like it or not, Channel 7 is famous.

That's why hotels such as the Grand Bay in the Grove and the Pier House in Key West shoot themselves in the cash register by yanking Rick Sanchez off the cable: Channel 7 itself has become an exotic tourist attraction, to be mentioned in the same breath as Parrot Jungle or Everglades National Park.

People who come to South Florida expect to see blood, and Channel 7 is often the only place they can find it. Take that away, and you've got some mighty disappointed tourists.

Forget the cheap souvenirs. They want lurid anecdotes of shopping-mall shootouts and Dumpster dismemberments to take back home. Otherwise, what's the point of risking a vacation in Miami?

If hotel owners were smart, they wouldn't take the Channel 7 newscast off the tube. They'd put it on Spectravision and charge $7.50 to see it, just like they do with slasher movies.

Perfectly seasoned? Half-baked

August 20, 1995

Miami's new tourist slogan was unveiled last week, to mixed reviews.

If you haven't yet heard it, here goes: "Greater Miami & the Beaches: Perfectly Seasoned."

The image will emblazon T-shirts, novelties and a fortune's worth of worldwide advertising.

Lots of readers have phoned the newspaper to offer comments, half of them rather unflattering. Much of the criticism is aimed at the clunkiness and redundancy of the phrase "Greater Miami & the Beaches."

Evidently the slogan's authors are striving to reach the most feebleminded of potential visitors—those who might come to Miami and not know there's a beach, and those who might come to the beach and not know there's a mainland.

I submit that we shouldn't be trying to lure travelers who cannot independently deduce, from the names, that "Miami" and "Miami Beach" are in the same general locale. These are folks who'd be much safer in the firm, watchful custody of a bus line tour guide.

Another problem with the new ad slogan: Why must it say Greater Miami? The purpose of such a distinction is puzzling. Is there a "Lesser" Miami that we don't know about? And, if so, why doesn't it want tourism?

Perhaps the origin of the logo's wordiness can be traced to the tide of the agency that commissioned it—the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. (Note the "Greater" and, of course, the ampersand.)

It's very possible the advertising firm that wrote the slogan—Turkel Schwartz & Partners!—was instructed to repeat the "greater," no matter how awkward and pointless.

Don't underestimate the civic pressure put on these harried, though well-paid, copy writers. Past tourist slogans became memorable for the wrong reasons.

Miami's "See It Like a Native" campaign provoked a huffy reaction because the poster featured a beautiful snorkeler who had misplaced her bikini top. In hindsight, those were the days of innocence.

Later came Florida's unintentionally ironic "The Rules Are Different Here"—presented in the wake of riots, soaring homicide, immigration chaos, and open debate about animal sacrifice. While that particular slogan was quickly put to rest, it took years to recover from the snide jokes.

This time, clearly, the ad agency was under orders to be very, very careful. Puns, quips and metaphors undoubtedly were screened with an eye toward avoiding controversy.

The result was "Perfectly Seasoned," which (although it evokes pot roast more than it does Ocean Drive) could've been worse.

Think about it. Once the agency decided to use cooking jargon in the tourism pitch, many less palatable expressions could have bubbled to the top:

Miami—Marinated in Magic!

Or: Miami—Sauteed With Excitement!

Or even: Miami—Naw, That's Just the Shrimp You're Smelling ...

Well, you get the idea. And while "Perfectly Seasoned" might sound half-baked, I understand what tourism promoters wanted in their new slogan—something different enough to be noticed, yet bland enough that it couldn't possibly frighten people away.

Forget tourists, residents need crime warning

March 20, 1997

A Florida sheriff is in hot water for telling tourists to stay away because "it's very dangerous" down here.

As if this is big news. As if anyone who hasn't been living in a sinkhole doesn't already know we're the nation's premier sun-gun-and-psycho destination.

Yet, judging from the harsh feedback, Lee County Sheriff John McDougall might as well have stomped on the state flag. For a public officeholder in Florida, spooking tourists is a mortal sin. It's considered much worse than taking bribes.

"I would tell them not to come," McDougall said last week on the Today show. "I wouldn't tell anyone in my family to come to Florida right now. I think it's very dangerous."

The sheriff was referring to the ongoing release of hundreds of career felons from state prisons. He advised visitors to steer clear until the convicts committed new crimes and got rounded up again by lawmen.

No sooner had McDougall uttered the words than tourism-industry honchos launched a dyspeptic counterattack. The question is why.

Tourists are notoriously difficult to scare off, and it's unlikely that the sheriffs melodramatic sound bite will have a big impact. After all, this isn't a new rash of rental-car attacks—it's just another politician hungry for a headline.

The felons being released from prison were getting out anyway. The reason they're being freed en masse is because other politicians kept them behind bars by retroactively applying tough new sentencing rules.

You can't legally do that, as any second-year law student would know. So (to nobody's surprise) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the timely release of those prisoners finishing their terms under the old guidelines.

That was Sheriff McDougall's excuse to rant. He wants a state amendment requiring inmates to serve 85 percent of their sentences—exactly what the new law already requires.

Oh well. A headline's a headline.

The chamber-of-commerce types would've been wise to ignore McDougall's TV performance.Those who ought to be concerned are the folks in Fort Myers—they've got a sheriff who's implying that the life and property of a tourist is more valuable than that of a local.

Because whatever random perils face somebody who visits the Sunshine State for a week or two, violent crime statistically poses a much greater menace to those who live here.

If McDougall honestly meant what he said, then why warn only the tourists? He could save many more lives by encouraging his constituents to pack up their belongings and move out of this "very dangerous" place as soon as possible.

Save yourselves, people! Get out while you can!

The sheriff can quit worrying so much about the tourists. They come and they go, leaving behind billions of useful dollars.

Residents are by far the more frequent victims of homicides, assaults and robberies. Serious felonies have soared with the state's exploding population, and few places are growing faster or more recklessly than McDougall's own county.