New Tampa Family Hopes Site Will Help People ‘Embrace Less Waste’

Sheila Haque and her husband Osman with daughters (l.-r.) Lilly, Ayva and Kayla.(Photo courtesy of Sheila Haque).

On what should have been a relaxing day out on the boat, Sheila Haque and her three daughters couldn’t help but notice more than just fish in the water.

They noticed trash.

“And that’s sad,” she says.

It was on that boat that Haque, who lives in Cory Lake Isles, hatched the idea to start a zero-waste, eco-friendly business that would help chip away at the ugly sight of plastic bottles and empty containers slapping up against the hull of her boat and littered alongside roads.

Embrace Less Waste USA is Haque’s plan. It is an e-commerce site (that you can visit at EmbraceLessWasteUSA.com, or on Facebook) that will also have a part-time presence at The Grove’s KRATE container park in Wesley Chapel.

Haque says her site will sell zero-waste products from only the best companies. She will rigorously and thoroughly vet each company, which has to be philantrophic, certified and based in the U.S.

She will include extensive bios with every product from paper-based poop bags for your pets to reusable toothpaste containers to safety razors instead of disposable ones.

“Mindfulness is a big thing for people that are living a minimalist lifestyle,” Haque says. “They want to know where their stuff comes from.”

A few months back, Haque was accepted into the Pasco Economic Development Council (EDC)’s business incubator program, which she described as invaluable. She was able to refine her business concept by meeting with industry experts, and is eager to launch her website.

“They helped me tweak some things and even rethink things,” Haque says. “They make you think above and beyond what you’ve already considered.”

Because of her relationship with the Pasco EDC, she also will have the opportunity to use their container at KRATE, which is expected to open this fall. She hopes to reserve the repurposed shipping container once a month, and she will sell products and host educational workshops there.

And, Haque will keep her daughters involved in her endeavor as well. It’s an important part of her business, she says, setting an example for her children as she does her part to help preserve the planet for their future. As a family, they bring trash bags with them on walks to pick up any trash they see along the way.

“I think it’s an incredible thing for kids to see what a difference you can make if you recycle and renew versus just throwing stuff away,” Haque says.

She says she isn’t sure when she will make her KRATE debut, but it should be in the coming months.

“We’re really excited to get the site up, and to show people the products we have when we have the container,” Haque says.

A Peek At New Tampa’s Fall Prep Sports

Friday, August 27, is the season opener for the Wharton and Freedom football teams, who will open the season against each other.

As if Freedom (1-9 last year) didn’t have enough of an uphill climb against the Wildcats, who won this meeting 50-0 last year, the Patriots also will have to deal with what could be a raucous opponent and fired up crowd as the school also debuts its new artificial turf field, which was installed over the summer, for a regular season game.

Wharton will have more offensive weapons this season so expect more scoring, but the Wildcats defense alone may be worth the price of admission.

The group allowed only 10 points a game last season, and could make a claim as one of Tampa Bay’s best.

Almost every defensive player is back, and the linebackers are outstanding. Senior Daveon Crouch has orally committed to Boston College, senior Henry Griffith led the team with 82 tackles, including nine for a loss, in 2020, and sophomore Booker Pickett, Jr., (pictured) was named a second-team MaxPreps Freshman All-American.

Senior CB Jairon Dorsey led the ‘Cats with five interceptions last season, while junior cornerback Dijon Johnson recently picked up college offers from Boston College, Ole Miss and Florida, and the defensive line is solid. 

They say defense wins championships, but Wharton has a few obstacles to overcome if they are going to prove that true, namely, one of the toughest schedules the team has ever faced.

The new District 7A-10 includes perennial powerhouses Armwood and Tampa Bay Tech, plus Wiregrass Ranch, and the non-district schedule includes former State champs Jesuit, Jefferson and Plant.

Carly Joerin (left) and Michelle Morgan, along with some promising newcomers, give the girls swimmers at Freedom enough firepower to contend for district and region championships this season.

GOLDEN GIRLS?: If Wharton football isn’t New Tampa’s best fall sports team, then it may be the Freedom girls swim team.

Led by Division 1 signees Michelle Morgan (Univ. of North Carolina) and Carly Joerin (Dartmouth College), the Patriots return just about everyone from the squad that finished seventh at the Class 3A meet last season.

“We were second in the District, second in the Region and seventh at State,” says second-year coach John Olewski. “We expect even better things this year.”

Morgan was the State champ in the 200-yard individual medley and added a silver in the 500-yard free while anchoring the 400-yard freestyle relay that won bronze.

Joerin also swam on that relay, as well as the 200- and 500-yard freestyles.  Alexa Valdez-Velez also swam on the brone-medal-winning relay team, and is a key returner.

Olewski says he has 27 swimmers, and every event is covered and then some this season. “We’re definitely looking forward to it,” he says.

Brooke Reif

SPEED RACER: Brooke Reif has her sights set on breaking Wharton’s cross country record of 18 minutes, 34 seconds in the first meet this season, then getting her times under 18 minutes, and then leading the Wildcats back to the Class 4A state meet as a team after missing out last year.

Luckily for her last goal, she will be counting on the return of the whole team — seniors Alex Frye and Alexi Amer, junior Olivia Hammill and a handful of others.

“We have everyone back,” she says. “I think everyone has improved and we’re much better. State is our goal.”

Reif and Frye could be a formidable top duo this season. They were the only Wildcats last season to advance past Districts, with Reif getting past regionals en route to a 31st place finish at State.

While Reif’s times were nothing special last season in cross country, her track season was so exceptional the experts at flrunners.com think she’ll have a cross country breakthrough. Reif was third in both the 1600- and 3200-meter runs at the Class 4A State Championships, performances that lead flrunners.com to rank her No. 10 in the entire state in their preseason cross country rankings.

HIGH FLYING: While 6-foot-3 senior middle hitter middle hitter Bella Bonatakis (pictured) wants to play the toughest competition out there, you’ll have to excuse her for not shedding a tear when she found out that Wharton was no longer in the same district as Plant.

“Maybe it’s a little bit of a relief?,” Bonatakis said with a wide smile.

A little? Wharton has made the District final eight of the last nine seasons, and lost six of those games to Plant. Of all the teams that Wharton has ever played at least five times, it only has losing records against Carrollwood Day School, Bloomingdale and…Plant.

Goodbye, and good riddance.

With Bonatakis (200 kills and 85 blocks last year), senior setter Gabrielle Frye (295 assists) and senior libero Kylie Lauderdale (170 digs) returning, Wharton will be formidable again. 

Throw in setter Danielle Galfond to help run the Wildcats’ 6-2 offense, future star Paige Boyd and returning hitter Ja-Niya Lamar, and a deep bench, and — Plant or no Plant — the Wildcats have all the makings of a team that can win that elusive Distrct title.

Business Notes: Refillables In WC

Bar manager Ashley Simon waits for a 32-oz. growler to finish filling at the Bru Florida Growler Bar. (Photos: John C. Cotey)

The area’s craft beer options continue to grow.

Bru Florida Growler Bar held its Grand Opening last week.

Located in the space previously occupied by Buttermilk Provisions across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, Bru Florida Growler Bar had been open with limited hours for about six weeks.

Customers are welcome to come in and enjoy a pint or two of beer, cider, kombucha or even nitro beer and coffee. They also can get all those things to go in 32- and 64-oz. growlers, which owner Christian Brugal says is part of the reason he opened his first Bru Florida Growler Bar in Citrus Park a few years ago — offering the convenience of bringing craft beer home for those who don’t have time (or don’t want) to sit in a bar. 

Brugal says that many craft breweries don’t bottle or can their beer and only sell it from kegs.

While getting growlers filled is now available at most bars, it typically involves just filling the growler from the bar’s beer tap. But, Bru Florida Growler Bar is a rarity in that it has three counter-pressure growler stations, which helps extend the to-go beer’s freshness. Bar, manager Ashley Simon (photo on previous page) says a sealed growler can retain its freshness for a month; otherwise, once opened, it only lasts a day or two.

Meanwhile, Brugal says another unique aspect of the new bar is its emphasis on local beer. While other brewpubs and bars carry local and other craft beers, Bru Florida Growler Bar only carries Florida-brewed beers. “We’re the only ones who do that,” says Brugal.

On the day we strolled in, there were 15 beers on tap, from breweries located all over the state, like Jupiter, Royal Palm Beach, Dania Beach, Orlando, Miami and Tallahassee. Also represented were Dunedin, St. Petersburg, Brooksville, as well as Wesley Chapel’s Double Branch Artisanal Ales. New beers from new breweries in different Florida cities are rotated in and out. For more information, visit at BruFL.com or call (813) 328-4721.

FILL ME UP PART II: The Walmart Supercenter is filling its parking lot right off BBD with a new 16-pump fuel center and a 1,605-sq.-ft. convenience store. If stocked like previously built Walmart fuel centers, the convenience store will offer your typical fare of grab-and-go deli items, snacks, cold beverages, a walk-in beer cooler and coffee.

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, visit the Lufka Wesley Chapel refillables store in the Cypress View Square plaza on S.R. 56.

LUFKA IS OPEN!: Speaking of bringing in your own container to get it filled with your favorite stuff, a new concept to Wesley Chapel is now open at the Cypress View Square plaza on S.R. 56 (home to the popular Capital Tacos).

Lufka Refillables Zero Waste Store has taken over the space in Cypress View Square formerly occupied by E’s Barber Shop at 27221 S.R. 56.

Lufka was originally created by Tampa’s Kelly Hawaii and her husband Parosh. They opened their first store in Seminole Heights in the summer of 2019, and their second store in South Tampa in November of 2020.

Wesley Chapel’s Danielle Howard, who also owns The Salt Room in Wesley Chapel (2718 Windguard Cir.) and at the Sarah Vande Berg Tennis & Wellness Center in Zephyrhills, co-owns the Wesley Chapel Lufka with her mother Gail Howard. “Danielle discovered it, and I just jumped in,” Gail says. “Now I get to work with my daughter.” 

Essentially, Lufka (Polish for “Barrel”) is where you can bring in your empty containers of household cleaning, bathroom and laundry products, to name a few, and have them refilled at the store, which bills itself as Tampa’s first “refillable, eco-friendly and sustainable bath, body, kitchen and D.I.Y. supplies company.”

The store has everything from laundry detergents to shampoos and conditioners, and from after-shave lotions to facial scrubs and from body lotions to a variety of soaps. Most of the products are organic, but all of them are healthier than the alternatives you usually buy in traditional stores, and come without a long list of chemical ingredients. 

Lufka encourages reducing your carbon footprint by reusing and refilling containers with eco-friendly products.

Although it is currently open, Lufka Wesley Chapel is hoping to schedule a Grand Opening later this month. 

For more info, call (813) 596-9376 or visit Lufka.com.

MORE BOWLS?: Also moving into Cypress View Square is Green Market Café, which is taking over the old Batter & Dough space at 27225 S.R. 56. Green Market Cafe offers a variety of healthy bowls, salads and wraps, as well as soups and frozen yogurt, all of which is locally sourced and affordable. It already has locations in Trinity, Clearwater, Seminole and Oldsmar. For more information, visit GreenMarketCafé.com. 

PCGC Closes, But Fight Over Its Development Goes On

All is quiet at the Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC), which closed for good on July 31. So, what’s next?

Homes…probably. Maybe?

PCGC owner Bill Place had all but finalized a deal to sell the roughly 150 acres of land the course sits on to Pulte Homes, which had plans to build 230-240 homes on the property, but told the Neighborhood News last week that the company had changed its mind.

“I think they are a bit scared of the publicity that will come with this,” Place said.

Another builder, KB Home, also appears to have removed itself from consideration to redevelop PCGC.

Place is still talking to other builders.

Place is also still awaiting the results of environmental testing on the course, which was found to have high levels of arsenic and dieldrin from insecticide applications (from before he owned the property, Place says). He says the results have been sent to the Environmental Protection Commission and directions on how to remediate the soil so the land can be developed is forthcoming. 

Darlene Young, Bob Young and Ray Walker get in one last round at Pebble Creek Golf Club. (Photos: Charmaine George)

The cost is expected to be somewhere between $1 million-$3 million, but Place says a $3-million price tag would be out of the question.

And, that’s where the fight begins.

Leslie Green has lived on the 10th hole at PCGC for nearly 30 years, in one of roughly 130 (of the 1,400 total in Pebble Creek) homes physically located on the golf course.

She created the “Save Pebble Creek” Facebook page in March 2019, and is leading the charge to convince the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners to deny any developer the rezoning it will require to build over the golf course..

Green is against building additional homes on the golf course site for a number of reasons — including the environmental impacts, flooding issues, the loss of green space and how new homes would affect an area she says is already densely populated.

She also is skeptical of many of Place’s claims. She thinks a rezoning could lead to far more than just 240 homes, doesn’t feel Place was losing as much money on the golf course as he claimed (while sabotaging it with negative portrayals) and did little in the way of improvements the past few years.

“When you’re constantly threatening to close the course, people are going to stop coming,” she says.

Green, who live-streamed on Facebook on July 31, the final day the golf club was open, also was a vocal critic when Place tried to get a brownfield designation for the course, which would have provided him with a tax credit that could have covered three-fourths of the remediation costs.

She was emboldened by the successful efforts of the community to defeat the brownfield designation. And, she thinks it can happen again.

“We didn’t just start Save Pebble Creek, we’ve been working together on this for two years,” Green says. “We have a strong community.”

Mike Jacobson, the homeowners association president for more than 1,000 of the 1,400 homes in Pebble Creek, is taking a more measured approach. Like most residents in Pebble Creek, he prefers a golf course over homes. But, he says that the choice isn’t between a golf course or new homes, but rather between an abandoned golf course and new homes.

Jacobson is mostly concerned with the worst-case scenario, and has to look no further than Plant City. In 2013, Walden Lake homeowners recommended denying rezoning of its struggling golf course for development.

Instead, the course shut down, the owner went into foreclosure and the formerly lush green fairways became overgrown with weeds and foliage. The two-story clubhouse became a haven for trespassers. Home values in Walden Lake took a big hit.

“That is my biggest fear,” Jacobson says.

There are now, seven wasted years later, plans to build homes and a “city center” on the long-dormant Walden Lakes course.

While making it clear that he is opposed to development on the golf course site, Jacobson had met with Pulte representatives before their retreat about the benefits of redevelopment.

At the end of the day, he says, it comes down to what is best for Pebble Creek’s homeowners, and the value of their properties.

“We are trying to find what is strategically the best outcome for all of Pebble Creek and, quite frankly, there’s no great outcome,” he says. “The best outcome is to find a buyer who wants to operate it as a golf course. If there’s anybody out there that wants to operate it as a golf course, I’d love for them to reach out to me….we would fight to the end with the commissioners to say we have somebody who wants to operate it the way it’s been zoned and keep it as a golf course.”

He says, however, that to date, no one has done so.

While engineers for a new developer could soon begin forging plans, the fight picks up when the rezoning request reaches the Hillsborough County Commission, possibly in 4-6 months.

“Any full rezoning boils down to the vote of the County Commission,” Place says. “And you can’t predict that with full accuracy. I expect there to be opposition, and I understand that it will be contentious.”

Here’s some photos from the last day of the golf club.

County Approves 22-Percent Trash Assessment Boost

Despite a number of problems with curbside garbage service in recent months, Hillsborough County Commissioners didn’t seem to have much choice but to vote to increase trash assessments for the coming year.

On Aug. 4, commissioners voted 5-2 in favor of the 22% increase, effective Oct. 1, rather than run the risk of having no service when the current contract with Waste Connections of Florida expires.

District 2 Commissioner Ken Hagan, who represents the New Tampa area, was one of the no votes, along with fellow Republican Stacy White.

“A majority of (Waste Connections’) service failures were in north Hillsborough, including my neighborhood,” said Hagan, a Carrollwood resident. “It was getting to the point where they were missing up to 50,000 homes a day. Residents were extremely frustrated, and I completely understand. I feel the same way.”

The annual assessment will rise from $289.32 to $352.79, an increase of $63.47 annually, or $1.22 per week.

Solid waste assessments pay for two garbage collections per week, one recycling collection per week and one yard waste collection per week, as well as self-hauled disposals at the county’s collection centers.

Fuel prices, truck maintenance and population growth have led to the need for higher assessments, according to the county staff.

However, because of recent performance issues with Waste Connections, the timing for a boost couldn’t be worse. 

The trash service provider missed more than 250,000 pickups in June and July, while hundreds of routes weren’t completed. The poor service resulted in thousands of emails and phone calls from angry residents.

Last month, the county threatened the trash hauler with fines if it did not improve service. Hagan says Waste Connections blamed Covid-related issues as well as an employee shortage brought on by not being awarded any of the new contracts, worth $589 million, which were approved in June and will begin in February of 2022. 

The new contracts went to Republic Services of Florida, Waste Management Inc., of Florida, and Fomento De Construcciones Y Contratas, Inc. 

Hagan said the new contractors are working with Waste Connections of Florida to bring over some of their employees.

“I feel relatively comfortable where we’re at now,” Hagan says. “They say they are caught up. And, we have procedures in place to prevent this, should it happen again. I feel much better than I did a couple of weeks ago.”