Hours for serving alcoholic beverages in unincorporated areas of Duval County were extended by the Board of County Commissioners as a means of expanding the economy through increased tourist and convention business.
The board extended the time for serving drinks from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday-Saturday and also allowed Sunday sales by the drink at certain large restaurants and at the Imeson Airport cocktail lounge.
The changes were made at the request of a group of restaurant owners and Frank Norris, banker and treasurer of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Norris said he spoke as an individual and not on behalf of the bureau.
“The county’s adherence to Victorian standards in certain fields has been an impediment to attracting visitors. We can find no other reason why so many Florida areas, and elsewhere, are surpassing us in growth and income,” he said.
The resolution was presented to the board by attorney Gordon Lee on behalf of Strickland’s Town House Restaurant, Green Turtle Restaurant, Thunderbird Restaurant and the Airport Lounge.
The amendment also allowed sales by the drink, but not package sales, from 1 p.m. to midnight Sunday for restaurants capable of seating and serving food to no less than 350 patrons. The same hours were applied to the cocktail lounge at the airport.
• State Attorney William Hallowes notified the Board of County Commissioners about the personnel he would employ after Jan. 5 when the county solicitor’s office would merge with the state attorney’s office.
Under a constitutional amendment approved by voters, the solicitor’s office would be abolished Jan. 5 and the state attorney’s office would take over its functions, including prosecution of cases in Criminal Court.
County Solicitor Edward Booth was named by Hallowes as one of two first assistant state attorneys at a salary of $15,000. The other, Nathan Schevitz, already was serving in that capacity at the same salary.
Hallowes said he would retain assistant state attorneys Thomas J. Shave Jr. and Richard Gordie at $11,000 each and Frank Scruby at $9,000.
Also to be transferred to the state attorney’s office were assistant county solicitors Hudson Oliff ($11,000); Baker King, Donald Nichols and John Gaillard ($9,800 each); Homer Humphries Jr., John Helms and William Tomlinson ($8,500 each); and John Ragsdale Jr., Alfred Taylor and Marvin Kramer ($6,000 each).
• City Council proposed closing City Hall on Christmas Eve, but the City Commission refused to go along.
City Finance Commissioner Dallas Thomas, with unanimous agreement by the commission, said it was “very important that City Hall remain open” the day before Christmas.
The commission did, however, agree to close City Hall at 1 p.m. Christmas Eve.
• Chief Assistant County Solicitor Hudson Oliff said an intoxicated driver often brings as quick and violent a death to the unsuspecting as a loaded gun.
“More people are killed by automobiles than all other unlawful homicides,” he said at a seminar on hit-and-run and automobile manslaughter cases. “And it is the duty of police officers to gather the proof necessary to sustain convictions in manslaughter cases.”
Oliff suggested establishment of an automobile homicide investigation team, enactment of a state law requiring driver’s license applicants to give permission for investigators to take blood for blood-alcohol samples and installation of motion picture machines in jails to record actions of people arrested as drunks.
County Medical Examiner Dr. Carl Wells demonstrated the manner in which a sample of blood should be taken in order to have it analyzed for alcohol content. He said the National Safety Council recognized a .15 percent blood alcohol level as the amount indicating intoxication.
• The 100-member Terry Parker High School band would make its second consecutive appearance in a presidential inauguration parade in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, said Warren Goodrich, chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of Florida.
Previous to the 1965 appearance for the inauguration of President Lyndon Johnson, the band marched in the parade when President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated in 1961.
“I know the band will do an outstanding job representing Florida as the only band from the state,” Goodrich said.
• A public appeal for vandals to stop shooting insulators on high-voltage electric transmission lines was made by the City Commission.
Commissioner J. Dillon Kennedy said the practice of using the insulators for target practice was widespread and could lead to major power outages.
The commission asked residents witnessing the target shooting to call police.
Areas most affected, Kennedy said, were transmission lines from Robin Wood Acres to Neptune Beach, Merrill Road to Robin Wood Acres and from the Kennedy Generating Station north to Oceanway. He said damage to any of those systems could black out vast areas of the county.
• A Jacksonville native who moved to New York City came home for the holidays and declared his hometown was part of an elite group of cities.
“There are only a few cities in the United States with real virility — New York, Chicago, San Francisco, maybe a few others. I believe Jacksonville has now joined this magical group,” said Dan Kriger, attorney for a New York importing company and a graduate of Duval High School, Jacksonville’s first.
Kriger said he believed Jacksonville was key to the development of the entire Southeast and would one day become “a major funnel” for trade with Central and South America.
• The Neptune Beach City Council approved a variance in the city zoning code to permit construction of a 32-unit apartment building in a residential area.
The variance was sought by Neptune Gardens Inc., which planned to construct the apartment building on the west side of Third Street between Bay and Magnolia streets.
The garden-type apartment complex would include a private swimming pool and would cost about $300,000, said Lee Ross, who represented the developer.
In other business, council awarded a $6,007 contract for the city’s insurance coverage for one year to Don L. Tullis Associates.
The McNeil Insurance Co., representing the Jacksonville Beaches Insurers Association (the only other bidder), submitted an identical figure. Tullis was given the contract because he was the insurance agent for the city and his service was commended by City Clerk Olive Jarboe.
• The Jacksonville Jaycees sponsored their annual Jack and Jill shopping tour for more than 200 Duval County children living in foster homes.
The young shoppers, accompanied by 50 Jaycees, met at the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad parking lot and were escorted to Hemming Park by Jacksonville police officers to meet Santa Claus.
The children were given money by the Jaycees to purchase gifts for themselves, relatives and friends.
The Jaycees began the annual shopping tradition in 1951.
• City Council Pardon Board members played Santa Claus when they granted Christmas pardons to 127 prisoners.
The holiday spirit went even further when, in one case in which a pardon could not be granted, board members dipped into their pockets to give financial assistance to the mother of two small children whose husband was not eligible for temporary release.
Council members Cecil Lowe, Lemuel Sharp and R. Lavern Reynolds considered 157 inmates as possibly eligible for pardons out of the 301 people being held at the prison farm.
Twenty-two female prisoners and 105 male prisoners were released on Christmas Eve. Most had been jailed for disorderly conduct.
• Thomas Ulmer, president of Ulmer & Mitchell Inc., commercial and industrial real estate brokers, was named the 1965 chairman of the Membership Committee of the Cummer Gallery of Art.
The gallery would seek to build membership to 1,200 supporters, which would represent a 50 percent increase in membership. All fees collected from memberships would be applied toward purchase of painting and other objects for the gallery’s collection, Ulmer said.
Ulmer’s appointment was announced by John Donahoo, trustee of the DeEtte Holden Cummer Museum Foundation.