This real life story contains debaucherous scenes of sex, drugs, and rock n roll from a rough Navy town transitioning to becoming an artsy tourist destination.

Truth be told, it was probably Sid Snellgrove who planted the seed that eventually matured into CHUBS. (Cayo Hueso’s Unusual Bartender’s Society). If I recall, we were sitting around The Bull one afternoon with Sid, Jim Mayer, Vic Latham, and some of the other usual suspects. I was behind the bar, machine-gunning my customers with Peppermint Schnapps, and said something to the effect that this Friday afternoon thing was almost starting to resemble a Club. Sid said that about a year earlier there had been a Friday afternoon meeting of a bunch of “old farts” down at Sloppy’s, before the rock music and the rest of the present day hoopla, back when you could sit down for a couple of hours at the bar and suck down some ice-cold drafts for 50 cents apiece and watch as the ceiling fans…slowly…spin around, counting the cars that went past the place using just the fingers on your two hands.

Sid said that they called it the LDSBA (Lower Duval Street Bartender’s Association). But that it had kind of faded away. Two days later I talked Paul, the owner of the Bull & Whistle, into letting me start the LDBA. I dropped the “S.” Too many letters for drunks to remember. If you don’t believe it, try having about a half-dozen drinks and compare saying the two.

I chose Monday night, as it was the slowest night of the week and there rarely were any other events planned on that night. The format was so simple, it was beautiful. We had cards printed with the L.D.B.A. logo and you had to flash it to the doorman or you didn’t get in. All you had to do to get one was to show that you were involved in the “bar business.” The qualification that you had to be a bartender, waiter, waitress, bar back, bouncer, chef, cook, etc. We provided finger foods, reduced drink prices, and the coup-de-grace: guest bartenders from different bars. I bought a typewriter and would fire off a one-page LDBA Newsletter that we handed out to the bars and restaurants. It was a big success right from the start. We ran it that way for a couple of months, until I left the Bull and took a job with Danny at Capt. Hornblower’s.

I talked David DiFabio, aka “Gumba,” into sharing the management duties with me at Hornblower’s. He was into numbers and chasing pussy. I was into talking bullshit and chasing pussy. It worked out well. We revived the club as CHUBS. It came to me in the middle of the night and sounded like an easy to remember acronym. We started drawing in bigger crowds by drafting different bartenders with their own followings and adding music. We took it up a notch by charging $25 to join, giving the members a round brass key ring. We recruited Brass Bill, Kevin Eleven’s brother, to make the keyrings for us. They came with the CHUBS acronym on the front and your nickname of choice on the back. Truth is, we gave away most of them. But still, you either had to pay or had to know someone to acquire one.

Around this time the meetings became even more popular, and we started making honorary members. We expanded the parameters of the club to include drug dealers, bar flies, whores, dancers; but also lawyers, government officials, and even our illustrious Mayor, Dennis Wardlow.

So really, by then, you could join if you were part of the “in” crowd or knew someone that would vouch for you. We even had bona fide cops as members. It was kind of live-and-let-live. The general membership were always respectful of the cops’ jobs, and they in turn tended to do the “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” three monkey routine. It was a beautiful thing, like a watering hole during a drought in the Serengeti Plains where predators and grazing animals called a truce to collectively quench their thirst! I’ll never forget the night I was walking out of the Full Moon Saloon, the original one, and Lt. Miguel Joven was walking in. Miguel was a big man. He played outside linebacker with Bubba Smith at Michigan in the late 60s. Miguel grabbed me, gave me a big hug lifting me off the ground causing a 2 gram glass vial to slip out of my pocket. It hit the ground and broke into pieces, scattering a lot of cocaine on the ground. We both froze for a moment, neither one of us saying anything…the lion & the zebra at the watering hole! He then put me down, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and said that he didn’t really need a drink that night he’d go home instead.

The moment his back was turned, Jack the security guard dropped to his knees, pulled his long blonde hair to the side, and with a rolled-up dollar bill, proceeded to start snorting! I warned him that he could inhale glass shards along with the coke. He took another sniff and told me not to worry, that his nose acted as a filter.

Over the next couple of months, CHUBS became the buzzword around town. The attrition rate for Tuesday morning job attendance was soaring. Relationships were under strain as one partner often had to be up early while the other did not. David and I could not go anywhere without someone asking if they could tend bar.

However, with each passing Monday, I felt something was wrong. I feared the whole concept would get old. One Monday I expressed that sentiment to my brother Chiqui. He reminded me of how much we had missed having steaks, back in the early days, when we mostly ate crawfish, conch, and fresh Hog Snapper. Chiqui recited verbatim the old saying about variety being the spice of life. He said it would make more sense to hold our gatherings at a different bar every week. Wow! A bolt of lightning!

The following Monday, we moved it to The Whistle. Afterward, we rotated venues every week: Sloppy Joe’s, Pier House, Fitzgerald’s, Billy’s Bar, Rooftop, Casa Marina, Reach, Delmonico’s, Strand, and A & B Lobster House, hosted by Ed Felton and his son Jimmy. The Special Monday Nights at Louie’s Backyard with that cantankerous and lovable crab, Phil Tenney. Michael Halpern’s mom, Martha, who had brought down Surfside Six, the famous houseboat from the TV series, she graciously hosted a few Monday nights. Mark Rossi blowing it out at Rick’s, Mike Blatt’s Durty Harry’s, and Cecil Bain’s 21 Club all welcomed us. Chez Emile with Terry & Linna, where Mayor Wardlow “guested” one night, more like one hour. His style of “a shot for you, a shot for me,” didn’t last long. He was carried down the stairs by four members who poured him–no pun intended–into a car and took him home. Just about every venue in town hosted us many times, including ventures out to Stock Island, where the ever-generous Jimmy Yaccarino welcomed us with open arms and basically gave the bar away, more than once.

A couple of different events stand out in my memory; a concert at Logain’s Lobster House, with Maria Muldaur and Bo Diddley.  When promptly issued them their own CHUBS keys, making them part of the flock. Another special night was one at the Strand with my dear friend Ray Pereira, who hosted a concert by Taj Mahal for us. We gave Taj his keyring, and he told me he was honored. Imagine that, one of the true blues legends touched that we made him one of us. It was a feeling of belonging to something bigger than any one of us. It was contagious.

Big Twist and the Mellow Fellows, a kick-ass hard blues band, came to town to do a three week gig at Captain Tony’s. Twist and I got to talking, and he came to the next CHUBS party. He told me he really liked it. He said it reminded him of back home when he was much younger and a bunch of his friends would all hang out in a dive outside of Carbondale, Illinois for a weekly blues night. So then Dave Burns, the indomitable jazz pianist/private detective–only in Key West–approached me one night, suggesting that we throw a party in Twist’s honor. Two weeks later, we put it together at Fitzgerald’s, thanks to Bill and the other Spotswood boys. The party started at the usual 11pm time, but Twist, the Fellows, Dave Burns, Elmo the Hammer, the Survivors, and all the other musicians in town didn’t roll-in until much later. At around 1am, Twist, all 400 lbs. of him, and the rest of the musicians took the stage and the joint by storm. They jammed until after four in the morning! I get goose bumps as I write this. I cannot recall a tighter party in all my years living in Key West!

The concerts were not the only avenue we chose to add spice and diversity to our meetings. We did contests. Not your typical wet T-shirt stuff. That was passé and as bar people, we felt it below us to indulge. We did a Pretty Feet Contest, which got media print coverage, via the AP byline, all the way to Oregon. 

We did a Man’s Chest Competition where The Reach is now. That was a crazy night. Besides the half dozen guest bartenders, to cover the three bars, we nominated twelve judges: women and men, both straight and gay. Gumba asked how I came up with twelve and for lack of any other answer told him to think Last Supper. Being the Italian Catholic that he was, he told me not to fuck around with Jesus Christ. I’d regret it. The roster included Carolyn, a hot redhead I’d met at the Sands Beach a week before, who I eventually married and had my only child, Natalie, The Possum. That night, I also committed possibly the biggest faux pas of my life in the bar business. I had a special judge’s table set up with the twelve chairs. Judges drank for free. That was the deal, although at that point in CHUBS we could have probably have charged for the judgeships. It was extremely hectic. Gumba was keeping an eye on the money and I was in charge of the contestants, the clock, and prepping myself to emcee the show. 

I was besieged by requests from many people wanting to be in on the judging. At the height of the craziness, a short man tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could be a judge. He spoke in a very effeminate voice, and I, behind about half a dozen Jack Daniels, a half a dozen lines of coke, and probably a half a dozen shots of Schnapps mixed with a large dose of Cuban temper, turned to him and told him that the last thing I needed was another queer drunk for a judge. Talk about political incorrectness. Everyone that knows me will tell you I don’t have a homophobic bone, or a racist one, in my entire body. It was just the stage butterflies, amplified by all the chemicals, venting out. Anyway, my cousin Sergio grabbed me by the shirt, dragged me backstage and informed me that I had just called one of America’s most famous playwrights an “inebriated homosexual,” his words. I almost fainted. I tracked Tennessee Williams down and apologized. He was most kind, and he tried to tell me he was sorry. I would have none of it. Ordering another Judge’s Chair, I announced to the rest of the judges that Mr. Williams would be the Head Judge—definitely, no pun intended. I begged Tennessee to please drink whatever he desired, on me. Later that night, Gumba told me that Mr. Williams’ tab was over two hundred dollars!

One more get together that sticks out in my mind was the night that we threw a Wet Nightgown Party at the Whistle. Joey Eden was the DJ. We signed up the contestants, and designated the judges. A couple of hours before the event Chris “Meat” Robinson called me to verify if it was true that I’d asked Rick Hayward to have him bring the Machine to the concert. I have to explain the Machine.

Chris had crafted a fine piece of red rose wood furniture: ornate and phallic, but almost a work of art. It had a projected, very phallic, end on it and a big red seat. Attached to it was a rather large dildo, to which Chris had rigged a variable speed motor. The idea was, when a woman rode it, the dildo went up and back, or in and out. The grand prize for the Wet Nightgown Contest, besides a  couple of hundred dollars, was a ride on the Machine!

Janet, a very hot, sexy brunette who was an erotic dancer proclaimed she’d win and encouraged 20 to 30 Coasties to attend the event. Who in the hell knew how they got in that night to cheer for her? The show started. The girls were fairly toasted and Chiqui and I walked around pouring ice cold Peppermint Schnapps down their throats, straight from the bottle. Each girl was trying to outdo the other, and Joey Eden was playing extra upbeat, extra loud rock. Everything and everyone was getting wet. The Schnapps was flowing and the girls were vamping. The only thing holding back the Coasties and others was a piece of string decorated with balloons. When the dust settled, Janet had won. Later, I heard that she’d promised the judges blow jobs, but that may have just been a rumor. As promised, she climbed atop the Machine and inserted the dildo. The thing would not work. Chris went to fiddle with it and it finally kicked in. Jane was riding it while licking the phallic appendage; the Coasties were in a frenzy. I called out to Sergio–who was in charge of Security–to stand by the balloon line, but he was nowhere to be seen. Chris found him getting a blow job in the bathroom. He appeared just at the moment the balloon line broke from the push of the coastie crowd, and Janet, in kind of an orgasmic flailing motion, knocked the Machine over and fell to the ground, striking her head. Joey killed the music and brought up the lights. For a second everything stopped. 

The police, who were just down the street, arrived. By then we’d made it routine to have an off-duty cop work our door. Ed Brost was a big man. He was overweight and moved slowly but he did an excellent job of screening the attendees. We paid him $50 every Monday night. All of the women adored him. They hugged and kissed him although he never did go beyond that with them. He was old school; big on the marriage thing. He was a big teddy bear who could, if the need arose, command respect both from civilians as well as fellow officers. The cops got involved, asking Chris to explain what had happened. As they started to inquire as to the exact nature of the device, Brost intervened loudly and the cops had a change of heart. They told us to get the apparatus off the premises. Chris and Rick hauled it down the steep backstairs of the Whistle, as Janet was regaining consciousness. The place pretty much cleared out and the rest of the night was fairly uneventful. The exception being that, although we searched high and low, we never did find Sergio. A couple of days later he reappeared. When I questioned him, he just smiled and told me that he’d scurried out at the first sight of the cops and had taken one of the contestants out to his boat to “protect” her!

After the first eight to nine months that CHUBS had been up and running, I got that nagging feeling again. I needed something to take us to the next level. We’d just hosted a “Bar Legends Night” at the Whistle with Vic Latham, Sid Snellgrove, Jim Mayer, Chicken Moyer and a couple of others that I can’t recall. Sid tended bar for about four minutes, every half hour or so, when he wanted to mix himself a drink. In the meantime we talked the manager into relinquishing the key to the office which allowed Sid to hold court and lay out the lines of toot. Around closing time, Vic Latham asked if he was going to get some kind of an award for all his hard work. Wow! Bolt of Lightning! The CHUBS Annual Bar Awards! That was it, the next level!

The First Annual CHUBS Bar Awards: imagine all these debaucherous, hard drinking, hard-partying bar people, trading in their flip flops and shorts for tuxedos and evening gowns! Did we pull it off? You bet your ass we did. Here’s something to jog the last few neurons still firing in your brain. Where did we host the first Awards? Sharkey’s! Today everybody knows it as Buffett’s altar, Margaritaville. Yes Sharkey’s, what a noble experiment. Dick and–I think,Judy–opened up an establishment where drunks and sharks could mingle. But before it was Sharkey’s, it was called Tux, dubbed the World’s Largest Bathroom, all done in tile, serving deli food.

All kidding aside, Dick and his wife were fantastic hosts and threw us one hell of an awards ceremony at Sharkey’s. There were  seventeen Awards categories, and balloting was done at individual bars where ballot boxes were placed. In true Key West tradition, anyone could vote as many times as they pleased! However, in the final analysis, I believe the majority of the time, the right person won.

The night of the first year’s Awards started a tradition for me. I cried tears of happiness witnessing all the outrageous characters. From rough-and-tumble to just zoned out bar folks who for that one special evening dressed in tuxedos, and everyone behaved as the true stars that they were. I still get tears in my eyes remembering “Fat Bobby,” who usually wore gym shorts, no shoes, and no shirt. On that night, he wore a tux with a ruffled shirt, cummerbund, and a bowtie!

We blatantly stole the format from the Academy Awards, and the event was a major success. We designated the proceeds to a fund that Lt. Mike Young had earmarked for a program teaching school children about Alcohol and Drug Abuse Awareness. It was not a joke. Most of us in the trade knew the dangers of over-imbibing, both from an indirect as well as a personal perspective, and we wanted young people to understand the pitfalls.

By the 3rd year of the Annual Awards night, I had to get out. That year it was held at The Strand, and it was held without me. I had actually packed up and followed Carolyn and Possum to Ft. Lauderdale to live in the real world. Predictably, it only lasted six months. The lure of the Rock, the fried grunts, and all the magical things about Key West worked on my psyche until I couldn’t take it anymore.

We moved back. I remember crossing the 7-mile bridge, tears streaming down my face, repeating the mantra, “There’s no place like home!” I heard the turnout for the Awards was big. The recipients proudly acknowledged their recognition, and Lt. Young’s program gratefully accepted the proceeds.

After that, CHUBS slowly faded away and eventually became part of the rich tradition of Key West bar lore. Years later, Bobby Mongelli and Paul Tripp revived the meeting format as the first Monday-of-the-month party for people in the bar trade.

Occasionally, someone asks about CHUBS and the possibility of reviving it. I always encourage it, wish them well, and pledge my support. But I’m not optimistic about it happening again—at least not in its original format and with its original success. Back then, Key West was undergoing a metamorphosis, moving from a Navy town to a world-recognized tourist destination. The people who toiled in the trenches making and serving drinks, food, and other aspects of the industry, needed a boost—a dose of positive self-image, which was well deserved and provided by CHUBS.

There are so many stories about the characters from those days, tales of love, friendship, and loyalty, along with all the fun and craziness. Many of the players have died; others have scattered to different places. Some of us are still fortunate to inhabit our 2 x 4 rock at the end of the road. The bar mentality of those halcyon days didn’t make bad people good—it made good people better. People like Teddy Shields, who first came down as an FBI agent to testify in a case and ended up trading his three-piece suit for a mixing glass at the Chart Room.

Many CHUBS members still carry their CHUBS keyrings. Recently, Buddy B.O. Owens flashed his at me. Others treasure them and keep them in a safe place with other mementos. Someone once asked how I would feel if the only thing I was remembered for in Key West was CHUBS. I had to swallow hard to hold back tears and replied that being remembered for something that touched and still affects so many lives would be an honor. CHUBS was bigger than any single one of us. It was all of us.

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Tony "Fat" Yaniz

Tony "Fats" Yaniz is a Florida-based personality known for hosting community events focused on life in the Florida Keys.

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