ST. PETERSBURG — Tubular Tokes owner Skylar Strickland knows he’s infamous in this town.
“For sure,” he said, smiling within the weed-scented stockroom of his convenience store and vaping emporium. “We’ve made a splash.”
Within arm’s reach sat an old pricing gun, a can of Frontiersman bear spray and a button that sounds an ear-ringing alarm for anyone who makes the mistake of breaking the “no bags” rule.
Strickland’s reputation for rudeness arose almost as soon as his shop opened six years ago. Customers seeking a pack of smokes or a bag of Cheetos said the 35-year-old owner has told them bluntly to “move, you’re taking up space,” “hurry up” or “speak English.”
One woman told the Tampa Bay Times that she lined up for road trip snacks and was greeted with, “What are you waiting for, motherf----r?” Another first-timer was taken aback at hearing “here’s your s—t” instead of “thank you.”
“Everyone in St. Petersburg knows about his attitude,” said Alex Boyd, a former customer, “but nobody knows what his deal is.”
Over the years, Strickland’s trademark sharp edges have endeared some, alienated others. But recent battery arrests have put him in a starker spotlight that includes a boycott effort and a fall trial date.
“All publicity is good publicity,” Strickland says in his New Jersey accent. A violent video may put that assertion to the test.
By 2021, the year Strickland opened a second location in Largo, he was notorious enough that social media accounts could turn him into a meme and thousands of people would get the joke.
“He yelled at me for wearing pink corduroy pants,” read a comment under one such Instagram post. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimized by the owner of Tubular Tokes,” went another.
Locals dubbed him the “vape Nazi” after the “soup Nazi,” a surly “Seinfeld” restaurateur who barked at his customers and imposed strict protocol. Like those characters who braved abuse for crab bisque, some of Strickland’s customers learned to weather his insults to enjoy his rock-bottom prices.
“I realized as long as I knew what I wanted and didn’t come off like I was asking dumb tourist questions, he’d get my stuff, and I could go on with my day,” said Jonathan Espinoza, who recounted being called a “basic b---h” while buying a vape.
Positive reviews refer to Strickland’s “sarcasm” as “hilarious.” “Thank you,” Strickland responded to one, “you get it.”
Strickland mentioned as an inspiration Dick’s Last Resort, the restaurant chain where servers are purposely rude.
He managed convenience stores for years, he said, before visiting St. Pete and deciding to open one here. Beyond his office’s beaded curtain lie row upon row of cigarettes, vapes, rolling papers, blunt wraps, glass pipes and plastic bongs. The other side of the shop holds an array of munchies, cold beer and sodas. It all draws people in from a Central Avenue block that has bustled since the ’70s-themed bar Lost & Found opened next door.
The wildly patterned carpets, Keith Haring figures dancing across the ceiling and neon signs glowing with “food,” “beer” and “whor*s” turn a normal quickie mart with batteries and dog food into an experience.
And where else might a shop owner call you “four eyes” or “Oompa Loompa?”
Strickland believes customers want a sense of urgency more than a butt-kissing clerk. He also said his Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism spectrum disorder, makes him blunt. He’s not aiming to hurt feelings with his “jokes,” he said, but if it happens, “it’s their choice.”
Business is good: Tubular Tokes is expanding into the storefront next door.
The online reviews, however, are terrible.
Matthew May, excited to buy his first legal Hemp Four Loko on his 21st birthday, said Strickland addressed him with a gay slur.
Rachel Jones, 50, was furious when she was called “grandma.” Gabrielle Oliver, 56, said she’s dyslexic and was asked “Are you stupid?” for seeking help with a vape battery.
One review reads, “The owner was verbally abusive and cussed and screamed in my face in front of my friend’s 10 month old baby.”
Unapologetic, Strickland wrote back: “You need to learn how to read signs, and when to put the fork down. Shamu.”
He replies to plenty of reviews that way. With May, for instance, Strickland said he didn’t recall the slur, but that he’s gay himself and “we own that word.” May, also gay, reiterates that he didn’t know the guy.
A chorus grew, saying his insults were sexist, hom*ophobic, ageist and ableist, creating a hostile environment out of step with St. Pete’s inclusive local values.
Strickland has not hesitated to physically toss out a rule breaker. He said, “A police officer told me how Florida law is written is that if you tell someone to get off your property and they don’t, you can pick him up by the throat and throw him off your property.” While the law does allow nondeadly force to protect one’s property, a St. Petersburg police spokesperson said that’s not how police would ever advise a business owner. They should instead call the cops. Records show an officer told Strickland as much the first time he bear sprayed someone in 2019.
Strickland has sprayed at least four people with bear repellent, according to police records, which is far stronger than pepper spray. Two witnesses told the Times they’ve seen other bear spray incidents that weren’t reported.
“He’s insane,” said Haden Polizzi, 37.
Polizzi said he once bought a lighter and exited through the store’s back door as Strickland was pulling up. They argued about why he was coming out of the employees-only stockroom exit — Polizzi said he had a clerk’s permission; the clerk told police he didn’t — then Strickland sprayed him.
Strickland claimed Polizzi had charged at him, though police said video didn’t show that. The state attorney considered charges, but Polizzi ultimately declined.
Strickland said he never sprayed anyone who was not physically attacking an employee or destroying his property. In 2019, he told police he sprayed a man who’d punched him and broke his glasses. Strickland pushed the man first, a police report stated, when he’d refused to leave. In other cases, police records are vague about circ*mstances.
Strickland has twice tasered someone he said was attacking him at his Largo store. One man, who Strickland said lunged at him, told police he’d come in to confront Strickland about his rudeness on an earlier visit and was tasered for no reason.
Cassie Mrotek, a fellow small-business owner, has urged people to avoid Tubular Tokes ever since Strickland called her a “motherf----r.”
“He worries me,” Mrotek, 38, said. “I feel like someone is going to really get hurt in or around his store.”
About a year ago, a customer claimed online that Strickland replied to her small talk at the register with “That makes me wish you would get raped.” (Strickland denies making any “rape jokes.”) Some who had previously tolerated his behavior began to turn.
“People started acting like it was an injustice he was in business,” said Alex Boyd, the former customer. “I thought, people don’t have to spend money there. Let the market decide. Later on, though, I saw he’d attacked someone. That was different.”
The first time Strickland was arrested at his shop was for tasering a woman.
Last July, police found 27-year-old Camry Pace outside with a probe embedded in the top of her skull. She told officers she’d gone in to buy a vape.
Strickland said the woman asked for something he didn’t carry, then lingered for 20 minutes, rambling about God. After asking her to leave, he put his hands on her to escort her out and, he told police, the woman punched him and tried to bite him. In a police video, he shows a scratch on one palm.
“I know you’ve got the right,” said the responding officer, “but it might have been easier just to call us.”
Police arrested Strickland for felony aggravated battery. The charges were dropped when authorities were unable to contact Pace, who is homeless, about testifying.
Then, in November, video surfaced showing Strickland hitting a woman behind Tubular Tokes.
On Nov. 3, Madison Hayward awoke at the Quality Inn and found the pillowcase stuck to her head with blood.
She had no memory of the night before other than going to the bar Lost & Found with a friend. They were in town from Maine to sign an apartment lease.
Hayward, 22, slowly realized she had cuts and bruises on her knees, arms, hands, back and abdomen. “What happened?” she asked her friend, who showed her a video.
The shaky nighttime video, taken from an apartment above the shop’s back lot, starts with Hayward on the ground. Strickland, the only other person around, hits her with a ring of keys. She calls him a psychopath. He kicks her twice and tells her to get off his property, before a bouncer from Lost & Found arrives as she screams, “Help!” Strickland walks away.
A tenant had recorded the clip and shared it with Hayward’s friend. Soon it was on TikTok and Instagram.
Strickland says the video is missing context. In his telling, he’d closed the shop when Hayward came through a closed gate and pounded on the back door yelling, “Where’s Joey?” When Strickland came out, he says, she shoved him and tried to get inside. He escorted her beyond the fence, he said, but she came back wanting to fight.
“That video makes me look like a monster,” he said. “But what you’ve got to understand is what looks like me kicking someone in the face is actually me pushing somebody away who had been trying to kick me and bite me for the last several minutes, right?”
Hayward can’t remember how she got there but thinks she was trying to get back to the bar.
“I’m 90 pounds soaking wet and on the ground, defenseless,” Hayward said. “He was trying to get me off his property, and it became physical. And because I couldn’t stand up, he just kept beating the s—t out of me.”
She suspects someone drugged her at the bar. The bar manager told police he’d seen her drink two shots but wasn’t sure what else. The bouncer later told police he’d “put her out” earlier that night because she’d been bothering a bartender. Hayward had gotten into at least one skirmish before. Months earlier, she had been charged in rural Maine for refusing arrest and felony assault on an officer. She pleaded guilty, and the felony will be dropped if she completes anger management and stays out of trouble.
Police arrested Strickland on a charge of felony aggravated battery, but the state attorney’s office ultimately charged him with misdemeanor battery. A trial is scheduled for September. Strickland claims self-defense.
In the Facebook group Boycott Tubular Tokes, someone called Strickland’s alleged battery of Hayward “the kick heard around the burg.”
Other vape shops offered to match Tubular Tokes’ prices. One rival smoke shop posted, “We beat prices … not women.” Even more one-star reviews appeared, and the shop suffered broken windows and some small protests.
At least one confrontation turned violent. A couple on the sidewalk criticized another couple as they left the store, asking how they could shop there. Two men fought. The man who’d been walking out went to the hospital with a fractured facial bone and needed a metal plate in his cheek, police said. The other was arrested.
Someone online compared Strickland to a “modern McB,” harkening back to another notorious Central Avenue business owner who trolled St. Pete’s progressives by organizing an Angry Man March. The shop experienced vandalism and a bombardment of bad reviews. McB’s men’s clothing store, run by Kevin McBride, eventually closed.
Strickland said people were quick to condemn him because he had a reputation. He’s confident his business will flourish, but a certain reputation can follow a business.
An owner of St. Petersburg’s Bacon Bitch, just blocks away, for instance, was dogged for years by accusations that he’d ordered an employee at his Miami restaurant to kill a stray cat with a crossbow. The evidence was murky — there certainly wasn’t a video — but an online petition polarized the public. The restaurant closed this year.
In July, eight months after the video surfaced, someone spray painted across the storefront into which Tubular Tokes is expanding, “The owner beats women.” Someone made stickers that say the same thing over a screenshot from the video.
No doubt Strickland knows about those stickers. He displays one on a wall inside his shop.
