Wicked Dolphin to host charity Prohibition Party
The Wicked Dolphin Rum Distillery at 131 SW 3rd Place in Cape Coral will host the “Wicked Dolphin Speakeasy: A Prohibition Party” Saturday from 8 p.m. to midnight, to benefit the Gulf Coast Humane Society’s Cape Coral shelter.
Tickets to the event are $75 and include admission, the hors d’oeuvres, dessert, cash bar and $1,000 in play gambling money.
Appropriate 1920s attire is encouraged and all activities and casino game proceeds benefit the GCHS.
A prohibition-themed party is particularly appropriate for the occasion – the Wicked Dolphin is the first distillery licensed to retail spirits and to give rum-tasting, distillery tours in Florida since prohibition.
Over a period of 12 months in 2012 and 2013, distillery owner JoAnn Elardo personally lobbied the Florida House and Senate for passage of the law that allowed it.
The idea for a Cape animal shelter was conceived in February of 2014 by Elardo and Jennifer Galloway, executive director for the Gulf Coast Humane Society in Fort Myers.
“We started talking about how the Cape has a year-round population of over 150,000 people,” said Elardo, “so why don’t we have a shelter?”
Elardo and Galloway met with John Szerlag, Cape Coral City manager, receiving the full support of the city and a donation of 5 acres for the shelter. They chose a mid-Cape location.
The no-kill facility will be built, staffed and operated by the Gulf Coast Humane Society.
“The design will be soft, getting away from the chain link and concrete as much as possible,” Galloway said. “There will be free-roaming rooms for the cats and large play areas for multiple dogs. The emphasis will be on training and wellness to ensure the adopted pets stay in their new homes.”
The air-conditioned shelter will include a full medical facility, an adoption program, educational programs about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, and volunteer opportunities for animal lovers.
“GCHS wants to be a resource for the community to help reduce the homeless pet population, to educate, train and help low-income families with basic veterinarian care,” Galloway said. “Many of these programs are already in place at the Fort Myers location and we want to bring them into Cape Coral.”
The GCHS estimates that by locating a facility in Cape Coral, they will be able to save approximately 1,000 dogs and cats a year in addition to those saved by the Gulf Coast Humane Society in Fort Myers.
Elardo believes that the distance people have to drive to bring unwanted pets to the Fort Myers shelter, to have pets spayed and neutered, or to find lost pets, may be a reason that lost and unwanted pets in Cape Coral are sometimes abandoned and even destroyed.
“We had a story in the paper recently,” she said, “about somebody dropping a basket of puppies off the Cape Coral Bridge.”
Local businesses have already pitched in with financial support and a total of some $300,000 has been raised, but the amount needed to complete the project is $2 million.
The Prohibition Party at the Wicked Dolphin Rum Distillery will feature food and drink, dancing and entertainment.
The distillery parking lot will be closed off and tented, and the facade of the building will be transformed into a speakeasy with secret doors, requiring a secret knock.
The Gulf Coast Symphony Jazz Ensemble will have the guests, in ’20s-era beads and bangles, pin-stripes and fedoras, shimmying to the Charleston.
Local restaurants will offer free hors d’oeuvres, and Cupcakes, by Save Room for Dessert, made with Wicked Dolphin Rum will be served.
There also will be a cash bar featuring specialty cocktails and draft beer donated by two local breweries. The distillery, of course, will craft some wickedly delicious rum cocktails.
Fat Point Brewing and Fort Myers Brewing and a Cuban cigar roller will provide smokes for flappers and gentlemen alike and dealers in sleeve garters and eye shades will run casino tables for high-rollers with funny money.
A Diamond Drop, donated by John Michaels Diamond and Jewelry Studio, will offer a 1 in 100 chance of winning a 1.03 ct. diamond in your glass of champagne, for a $20 donation. All activities and casino game proceeds benefit the GCHS.
Tickets are available at WickedDolphin.com and Eventbrite.com as well as at the Wicked Dolphin Distillery, Stephen Todd Home Furnishings and the John Michaels Diamond and Jewelry Studio in Cape Coral.
For more information about the event, call the GCHS at 239-332-0364.