October 11, 2002
By Kara Chalmers
Englewood Community Hospital canceled a screening at its auditorium of a documentary film about the 2000 presidential election, after the hospital's top brass saw a promotional flier and determined that the film would be "too radical."
Larry Reister, co-chairman of the fledgling Englewood Democratic Club, had scheduled two showings of "Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election" for Saturday at the hospital's Suncoast Auditorium.
The film, by Los Angeles filmmakers Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler, is about Florida's role in the election. The film's Web site, unprecedented.org, states that "George W. Bush stole the presidency of the United States ... and got away with it." A hospital scheduler told Reister on the phone Wednesday that the hospital was cancelling the event, Reister said.
The managers of the hospital, including President and CEO Bob Meade, didn't want the hospital to be associated with anything so extreme, said Marketing Director Jim Sproul.
Reister said he's disappointed the film won't be shown at the hospital, but that Sproul has a valid point.
"I agree with him it's pretty blatant," Reister said about the wording on the flyer.
Reister said he used language from the film's Web site for the flier: "This is the riveting story of the battle for the Presidency in Florida and the undermining of democracy in America ... a disturbing picture of an election marred by electoral injustices, sinister voter purges and suspicious irregularities."
Reister said he's since rewritten the flier in his own words and that they are much less inflammatory. The club is now planning to screen the film Saturday at the Tringali Park Community Center.
The original flier also said the screening is a "public service of the Englewood Democratic Club and Englewood Community Hospital." That was the part that worried Sproul and others at the hospital, Sproul said.
"The views were way too radical and extreme for our hospital to associate with," Sproul said.
Sproul said the hospital doesn't involve itself in politics. It makes the auditorium available without charge to nonprofit groups.
In the future, he said, hospital schedulers will ask more questions of partisan groups that ask to hold a meeting in the auditorium. He said the hospital won't allow any presentations that are "radical or distasteful."
"We've never had an experience like this before," he said.
Sproul said the hospital's managers would have acted the same if the event was planned by a Republican group that used radical language.
The Englewood Democratic Club was formed two weeks ago and has about 40 members, Reister said. Members must be registered Democrats in Charlotte or Sarasota counties; most are Englewood residents, he said.
Reister said there have been Democratic clubs in Englewood in the past. The new one was formed to assist Democratic candidates in the coming election, he said.
The approximately one-hour film will be screened at 3:45 and 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Tringali Park Community Center, 3460 S. McCall Road, Englewood. The showing is free and open to public, Reister said.