WEEKI WACHEE, FLORIDA - Mermaids have been performing at Weeki Wachee Springs for 60 years. At first, they stood along U.S. 19 in swimsuits, flagging down traffic. Then they would run and jump in the spring to do their underwater act.
The glory years were the 1950s and 1960s, when Weeki Wachee gained worldwide fame. Today the place still has a sort of 1960s, pre-Disney feel, which I mean in a good way - a perfect piece of Florida roadside kitsch, before everything got all modern.
The highlight is the Underwater Theater, of course.
You sit in a curved amphitheater and peer through giant windows into the spring. The mermaids swim and dance and lip-synch to music, breathing through air hoses.
I watched them do The Little Mermaid the other day. At the risk of spoiling the story, I can tell you that the heroine finds her prince and the Wicked Sea Witch is defeated.
Unfortunately for the mermaids of Weeki Wachee, it is easier to defeat fictitious sea witches than to subdue a real-life adversary, namely …
The Southwest Florida Water Management District.
Ah, yes. Swiftmud.
The water district owns the land that Weeki Wachee Springs sits upon. And it is suing. Has been suing.
As for who owns the mermaids, well, that is an interesting setup. There’s a private company. But a few years ago its owner simply gave the company to the city of Weeki Wachee. (He got a tax break.)
As for the “city,” its population usually fluctuates somewhere between five and nine people, consisting of attraction employees.
This is a cozy setup, and it bugs the heck out of Swiftmud. The lawsuit was originally about three things:
- Was this a transfer of the lease to a new party? That needed Swiftmud’s approval.
- Can a city really own a company like this at all?
- Did Weeki Wachee break its lease when it removed sand that had run off into the springs without a permit?
Now, I said that the lawsuit was “about” those things.
But after talking with both sides, I am convinced it is no longer just about those things.
These guys really do not like each other. And — like a couple going through a bitter, endless divorce, egged on by lawyers — all they can do is complain about each other, reciting every sin, every remark, every misdeed of the past four years.
I have the distinct impression that Swiftmud is damned if it is going to be bested by a bunch of mermaids.
Still, maybe there is a way out. Some state folks toured the place the other day with an eye toward taking it over as a state park. Remember, the public owns the land anyway.
A state takeover is fine by the Weeki Wachee folks (although I think they figure the state will let them keep running the attraction). The Swiftmud folks also say it would be fine by them.
So I hope that is what happens. That way everybody is happy, and we could still have mermaids.
On the way out, I passed an outdoor booth where you could have your picture taken with one. It was for kids, I figured, so I didn’t make a spectacle of myself. But I thought about it.
