A few pictures from Sunday’s fun trip to Jost and back. The day could not have been nicer…great friends, a beautiful hot and sunny beach with an ocean warmed up to perfect bobbing temperature. I don’t think I left the water all day long…it was a great way to start my 35th year!

Just wanted to wish my beautiful wife a very happy 35th birthday this Sunday the 28th. We’ve rented a boat and are bringing along 20 of the funnest people we know over to Soggy Dollar on Jost Van Dyke.

Pictures of the fun-ness will follow, and they may be “fuzzy”…

The St. Thomas Blog is having a great year thanks to you guys. We’re averaging over 2000 visits a day, locals are really participating and our Best of St. Thomas 2009 Awards we’re a big hit. Thanks so much for reading and participating!

Special shout out to our advertisers. First know this, we won’t let anyone just advertise. You gotta have a good product/service otherwise we’re just pimping ourselves out (which is why you don’t see Google ads on our site).

So big thanks to the Following (in order of when they signed up):

Craig and Sally’s Restaurant (winner of our Best of St. Thomas 2008, 2009, been a regular for 3 years, fantastic food and service)

Karen Korsgren Realtor (works for ReMax and is a close personal friend, excellent St. Thomas Real Estate Agent)

Virgin Islands Auto Club, VIAC (the Triple A of the USVI, we are members)

Caribbean Saloon (winner of our Best of St. Thomas 2008, 2009, great venue for sports and live bands)

Shipwreck Tavern (winner of our Best of St. Thomas Award 2008, 2009 and Nicci’s place of employment)

Epernay Wine & Champagne Bar (winner of our Best of St. Thomas 2008, great social spot with fantastic food)

Enkai Sushi Bar (winner of our Best of St. Thomas 2009, Best Sushi on St. Thomas)

Special shout out to The Buzz 104.3 FM, we do a lot of cross promotions together and they are some Kewl Cats!

Please help spread the word about the Blog and St. Thomas.

Order our St. Thomas T-Shirts here: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?page_id=2821

Want to win a $10,000 vacation?

Who doesn’t, right? I knew it was a dumb question.

Here’s the scoop, HomeAway is currently running a contest called Save Our Summer Vacation. Here’s the deal - HomeAway feels that we need a National Vacation Day and they’ve chosen August 7 (eh, why not). They’ve started this petition to stand up for our rights as stressed out peeps; these rights include:

* Take a break from stress
* Recharge and reconnect with family and friends
* Have enough space to truly relax
* Travel in style without breaking your budget

Count me in! In addition to the Vacation Day movement they are also running a contest to find the person most deserving of a summer vacation. Send in a video, text or photo entry and plead your case on why you need to get away from it all. The winner gets the 10k trip and two runners-up both get a 5k trip. 

Here’s the Grand Prize as quoted from the website:

(1) Grand Prize: A $10,000 HomeAway Getaway to the Vacation Rental the winner chooses provided that such vacation rental must be available through HomeAway.com or a website owned and operated by HomeAway®, Inc. The prize will be applied to the rental price of the Vacation Rental. Should the cost of the Vacation Rental be less than $10,000, the difference will be given to the winner in cash to apply to airfare, meals, etc.

Think it sounds like a cool contest? Your entry must be received by July 2, and yes, I know that’s only a week away! According to the official website (Save Our Summer Vacation) there are already 1187 entries. After July 2 the public gets to vote on all entries, and from there the top 15 will be judged by an official panel with the winners announced on July 28. You, my friend, could be a month away from winning a huge vacation! Cool!

In addition to this contest the company still remains a great place to check out for HomeAway Vacation Rentals, and reminds you that sometimes a private rental can be a better trip option than crowding yourself into a hotel or resort with a hundred other people all racing for the same pool chair…

Good luck on the contest, keep us updated with your entries so we can vote for ya!

Now here’s an interesting story. Our VI Government, the same people who cannot collect property taxes since 2006 have sued their “partners in crime”, Southland Gaming over alleged unpaid gross receipts taxes for the Video Lottery Terminals (VLT’s). To the tune of over 20 million. You can read all the gory details here.

I don’t even remotely know all the details.  But here’s what I do know. They’re both making money hand over fist. Southland reports that they’ve contributed over 65 million dollars to the VI economy. I believe it.

So what will happen in this poker standoff? Southland could pack up and leave is what could happen. What would that do to our economy? It could crush it, and here’s why.

Many restaurants and bars rely on the VLT’s for pure profits. An average restaurant with 40 seats can pull in over $150,000/year in straight profits. Add that to the profits in the restaurant/bar and you’ve now got a nice small business.  If Southland packs up and leaves guess what happens to all these small businesses who have been relying on these easy profits? See ya! I can think of a dozen right now that would SUFFER and most likely go out of business.

The VLT’s make money and stimulate the economy, period. Does the USVI Government honestly believe they can do a better job? They can’t even collect property taxes!

I don’t know where the greed will stop on this one but one things for sure. The government and Southland should be able to work this out somehow. It’s like arguing over table scraps for them. They’re both making ridiculous money, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Again, I’m no expert here but one would think the years of tremendous profits would get these two back together. What are your thoughts?

Exciting stuff happening with Shipwreck Tavern. First I designed the website for Shipwreck Tavern, Mojo’s Rum & Surf Shack and The Rock Nightclub and Lounge.

You can check it out here: http://www.shipwreckstthomas.com.

Secondly they are opening Mojo’s Rum and Surf Shack soon (I’m told this Friday/Saturday fingers crossed)! This place looks awesome. It’s a killer tiki bar in Havensight across from Hooters.  They have bar swings (instead of stools), tiki torches, picnic tables, it’s really a great set up.

Head over to Mojo’s and tell me what you think!

We’ve finally come out with our first fun product. We’re now selling these great T-Shirts/Tank Tops with this logo on the front and back.

We’ll have black t’s for men and black spaghetti tanks for women. If you would like to be one of the first to receive these exclusive shirts Click Here.

Order: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?page_id=2821

They come in all sizes and the cost is $19.99 plus $2 S&H (add $3 for 2XL and above). We take credit cards and cold hard cash. Order now!!!

Nicci and I work very hard running around the island trying to help you guys out. So if you got a few extra bucks order this shirt because it’s way cool and we need the money

Order: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?page_id=2821

The kick-ass Smirnoff Concert Series is back in full force. Check out New York’s “Revision” this Saturday night the 27th at the Caribbean Saloon.

Check these cool cats out here:

Follow them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Revisionband

Follow them on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/revisionmusic

This is really gonna be a fun rockin’ night, see ya at the Caribbean Saloon Saturday June 27th!

I hope all you dads out there have enjoyed a well-deserved Father’s Day!

I’d like to wish my own dad the best Dad’s Day ever – with one of my favorite pictures of all time…:

Happy Dad’s Day Dad!! Love you, see you in a month!

We’ve been big supporters of Epernay for years now. Rabbit and Oran won our Best Bartender(s) 2008 Award. Epernay is cool because it’s a very small, quaint spot that you can get great wine at.

But wait, there’s more (and it’s not Ginsu Knives), they have great food.  Nicci and I try and make it there at least once a month for dinner. The local crowd there is always great as you get a lot of business people having drinks and dinner after work.

Epernay is located in Frenchtown next to the Frenchtown Deli and below Stereo Nightclub. Check it out and tell them Scott & Nicci from the blog sent you.

Visit their website here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1001155235&ref=ts

Last night Nicci and I and our friends Tripp and Jenn had dinner at Romano’s when I noticed Hockey Legend Ray Bourque sitting with his family having dinner. For those that don’t know who he is here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Raymond Jean Bourque (born December 28, 1960) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey player and Hockey Hall of Famer who currently holds the records for most goals, assists and points by a defenceman in the National Hockey League (NHL), and has become near-synonymous with the Boston Bruins franchise, for which he played 21 seasons. He also played for the Colorado Avalanche.

Romano’s is a very small, quaint Italian restaurant and Ray didn’t know it but we had him pinned down. As he walked towards us to use the restroom Tripp and I both ambushed him and said hello. Ray was exceptionally nice, chatting with us for a while. Tripp was somewhat starstruck as he use to play hockey in his younger days. At one point Ray said to him, “look, I’m not going to give you mouth to mouth”. Pretty funny.

Here we all are with Ray:

Left to right: Jenn, Nicci, Ray, Tripp and me

Here’s Ray winning the Stanley Cup:

Here’s Ray having his number retired in Boston:

On his way out Ray invited us to his restaurant in Boston called Tresca.

We’ll be in Boston in July, so we’ll be stopping by.

Romano’s gets all the celebs!

Okay locals, here’s your chance to rate our fine St. Thomas beaches. Let’s pretend you’re giving advice to a tourist who is here for a week for the first time. What 5 St. Thomas beaches would you send them to?

Vote for your favorite beach here then comment on your top 5 in the comment section.

Some of the beaches to vote for in your TOP 5 St. Thomas Beaches:

Coki Point, Water Bay, Sugar Bay, Lindquist Beach/lindqvist Beach, Sapphire Beach, Vessup Bay, Bluebeards Beach, Turtle Cove, Cowpet Bay, Secret Harbor, Dorothea Bay, Hull Bay, Magens Bay, Little Magens, Mandahl Bay, Bolongo Bay, Limetree Beach, Morningstar Beach/Frenchman’s Bay, Lindberg Bay/Emerald Beach, Brewers Bay, Neltjeberg Beach

Brewers Bay Beach is located on the west end of St. Thomas just past the University of the Virgin Islands.

This is my personal opinion of the beach. It stinks. The end. Rated a 1 out of 4.

It’s rocky, broken glass everywhere, beer bottle tops scattered throughout the beach. Parking is difficult as there is no parking (park on the road). No public bathrooms (the two port-a-potties were padlocked?).

The water isn’t bad and it’s entertaining to watch the airplanes take off and land. It’s free so there’s that.

I’m sure I’m going to offend some people by saying the beach stinks but I didn’t care for it. Not when we have so many other beautiful beaches to choose from (Lindquist, Magens Bay, Sapphire, Secret Harbor and Emerald to name just a few).

So, if you like Brewers Bay Beach, why?

I keep scratching my head every time I hear the news on the state of our property taxes. But here we go again. Without getting into all the details here’s the short version.

The government got sued and lost and couldn’t issue tax bills to land/property owners. For years no one paid taxes (imagine that).  Then the government basically said screw you courts (sorry for my non lawyerly approach here) and issued tax bills for 2006. I paid mine when it came out this year.

Stop the presses, they went back to court and the government has lost again. Your 2006 tax bills ARE NOT DUE NOW, again.  This is so ridiculous it’s unimaginable.

Here’s the legal jargon with the ruling:

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the injunction against the Government of the Virgin Islands enforcing its real property tax bills as issued. Such has been in place since 2003.The Appeals Court’s displeasure with the VI government could be detected both through the awarding of costs to the plaintiffs, a relatively rare move and it’s pointed affirmation of the civil contempt citation by the District Court against the Government of the Virgin Islands.

The Government of the Virgin Islands sent out its tax bills in 2008 while the District Court was still in determination as to the status of the injunction, resulting in the original contempt decree. The Court continues to retain jurisdiction over the matter, which has ordered the reform of the operation of the Board of Tax Review. It had set two conditions to be satisfied before it would lift the injunction against the Government, those being compliance with a now repealed act of law.

The remaining condition, a functioning Board of Tax review that consistently holds hearings and reaches determinations on appeals, while functioning to some degree, still ‘remained in disarray” according to the Court. To date, the Board of Tax Review has met eight times since the Court first set the conditions for removing the injunction in 2003
(5 times in 2006, once in 2007, once in 2008, and once in 2009).

There are still 374 appeals pending before the board. What the Court found particularly disturbing is that neither of the witnesses called by the Government of the Virgin Islands knew whether or not the Tax Board was notifying taxpayers of their appeal dates. The Commissioner of Finance is on the record that no taxpayers appeared at the 2008 meeting.

The Court has found that the Tax Board’s compliance was “sporadic, short-lived, and of recent vintage” that there was “no evidence that the Board of Tax Review is maintaining reliable records,” and that even if such attempts were being made, that “good faith commitment is not enough.” Due process standards have yet to be met, but the Court had suggested regular monthly meetings as a good way to start.

What is wrong with our court system and government? Don’t they understand that these monies are needed to keep a budget? The fact that we are 3 years behind is ludicrous. Furthermore if homeowners haven’t saved the 3 years worth of taxes they are going to be in deep doo doo, because these bills are eventually going to come due.

So folks, no need to pay your taxes, again.

Come out this Friday night the 19th to see Nevermind, the ultimate Nirvana Tribute band at Caribbean Saloon!

These guys rock, don’t miss them this Friday night at the Saloon.