The Foster, The Baker, The Candlestick-maker...

Sorry, we couldn't resist the reference, especially given what Mayor Bill Foster said at the last Lens Pier meeting on Thursday:

"If you want to buy a candle, if you want to buy a t-shirt, you can go anywhere, you can buy that at Target, at Steinmart, Bealls, you can do that."

This was clearly a shot across the bow at Nicolas Weathersbee, one of the people behind VoteOnThePier.com, who also works at the candle shop on the Pier. Nicolas has been an outspoken proponent for allowing people to vote on the Pier's future since the unannounced vote by city council to tear down the inverted pyramid pier almost two years ago. In response to Foster's statement, Nicolas had this to say:

"So our mayor is suggesting that people DON'T BUY LOCAL. BUY CHINESE. Too bad our company has been resisting Chinese manufacturers for 15 years, our products can only be bought in two stores in all of Florida... And by the way, the candles are ONLY made at The Pier, and John's pass. They are unique to St.Pete, and absolutely CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, AND DEFINITELY NOT TARGET! The candle company at The Pier is proud that they can say "Made in America". They have been hiring artists for 15 years locally, and have never sold out to the Chinese manufacturers, who have been after them for years."

It is ironic, to say the least, that Foster's insistence that people shop at major corporate retail stores instead of locally-owned businesses comes just a couple weeks before Independents Week, an event geared toward getting people to shop more at local independent shops in St. Petersburg. In fact, the proclamation for Independents Week happened at City Hall only hours before Mayor Foster spoke the above quote. Can you say "awkward..."?

So that's the "Foster" and the "Candlestick-maker" parts of the headline(yes, technically he doesn't make "stick" candles, but "round ball" candles), but what about the "Baker" part? Well, that part just fits nicely into everything we've been posting about recently related to former-Mayor Rick Baker and how he is different(better) than our current-Mayor Bill Foster. Here is what Mr. Weathersbee had to say,

"Baker used to come in the front door of the pier and look you in the eye and ask how things are going... Baker was quoted as saying my candle shop was his favorite shop at the pier. That was nice..."

Just one more in the long list of reasons why we miss Mayor Rick Baker.