In government offices, at downtown power lunches and over cigars and steaming cups of cafe con leche, Tampa has long heard a familiar refrain:
“Did you see what it said in La Gaceta?”
From its offices on the hardscrabble end of Seventh Avenue just east of Ybor City, the 50-cent weekly billed as the nation’s only trilingual newspaper is marking its 100th year. More than a century ago, Victoriano Manteiga came here from Cuba for a job as a cigar factory lector, reading news and novels to workers as they rolled cigars. Then, in this town’s rich blend of immigrants, he started a newspaper.
Next came son Roland Manteiga in his elegant white suits, holding court with politicians and the powerful at his permanently-reserved back-corner table at Ybor’s La Tropicana restaurant.
Today it’s son Patrick Manteiga, 57, carrying on the tradition of exclusive tidbits, goings-on and the occasional sharp elbow — like in the dust-up between the mayor and the City Council over, among other thi...