PANHANDLE TREE TO BE SPARED BUT PRUNED TO CUT CRIME

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. -- A century-old oak that Okaloosa County sheriff's
deputies wanted to chop down because it provides cover for drug dealers and
prostitutes has won a reprieve, but it will be severely pruned.

A free trimming offered by Fritz Bros. Tree Service has been accepted,
sheriff's spokesman Rick Hord said Thursday. Les Fritz said his company
also will try to seal cavities in the tree that have been used to hide
contraband.

"It's an old tree and I think it would be a shame to cut it down without
pursuing other options, increasing patrols, putting a fence around it,
pruning it," Fritz said. "It's like we're cutting off our arm because our
hand is offending us."

Hord said residents of the Sylvania Heights neighborhood had suggested
cutting down the oak on a county right of way while most opposition has
come from outside the community.

C.C. Fearson, executive director for the Sylvania Heights Front Porch
revitalization organization, has sided with the opponents although he, too,
lives in the neighborhood.

"The tree doesn't sell drugs," he said. "The tree isn't the problem and it
definitely isn't the solution. Everybody makes it sound like that tree is a
drug dealer."

Fearson said publicity already has prompted people who usually sit
underneath its spreading branches to move. They were sitting in front of a
nearby fence Thursday.

Instead, Fearson wants to see the county pass an ordinance to make it
illegal to assemble under the tree for unlawful purposes while deputies
lawbreakers.

Cypress Street resident Osie Brown was angered by outsiders lobbying to
save the tree.

"They don't live on Cypress Street," she said. "They do not see those
people standing up peeing in front of these kids. My grandkids and my
children walk by there."

But she said she would accept pruning if people can't use it to hide.