There's a reason Key West was the inspiration for the song Margaritaville. The island runs on booze.
Tourists and the Duval Crawl — that’s the obvious. There are towns where it might be frowned upon for locals to start the day with a beer, or even a shot of tequila. Key West is not one of those towns.
It's 10 in the morning, so Tony Klein is drinking a Budweiser at the Schooner Wharf for Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club is a thing at the open-air bar on the waterfront in Key West.
Klein is 81 years old. He doesn't look it - especially when he tells you how much he drinks.
"Probably six, seven, maybe more," he said. "It depends. If there's a lot going on, if I'm in a conversation I really enjoy I could have 10 or 12."
That's beer. Although that's not all Klein drinks.
"I like martinis. But I limit myself to beer," he said, "during the day."
Klein says a lot of Key West's social life revolves around drinking, and certainly that includes him.
"Because I've always had, not a drinking problem but sort of a controlled drinking problem. I always worked, paid all my rent, paid all my bills," he said.
Klein moved to Key West in the 1970s. He worked as a bartender and a cab driver. He says he doesn't worry too much about the effects on his health. He's a veteran and goes to the VA for checkups.
"He tells me I've got a cast-iron liver and he wishes he had that," Klein said. "And he always asks me what I drink because all my blood work is really good for an old guy."
'One of the highest achievements of my life'
Klein may be blessed with a constitution that can handle copious amounts of alcohol. But in the Keys, people are are drinking way too much. Monroe County leads the state in binge-drinking — and that's residents, not tourists.
Drinking a lot is generally accepted, if not celebrated. Klein is proud to be president of the Schooner Wharf Breakfast Club.
"One of the highest achievements of my life, as I look at it, here in Key West," he said. "Our motto is making the world a better place, one beer at a time."
Not every member of the club is a drinker. Gerald Floyd — better known as Pink — quit drinking six months ago, after he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. But he lives on a boat docked near the bar and still hangs out there in the mornings, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
"All my friends are here and we've been through a lot together. I'm widowed," he said. "I know everybody and everyone knows me."
If that sounds like the set up from the old TV show Cheers — the bar where everybody knows your name — it kind of is. At least a sweatier subtropical version of it.
Pink and Klein are retired. Some of the Breakfast Club members are still working, like Mike Dritsas. He's a tree trimmer and people call him Big Mike, because he's really tall.
"I prefer drinking during the day because there's less trouble," he said. "Hoodlums come out at night."
Dritsas only comes on weekends because he's not going to drink before cutting down trees. He says he likes hanging out with the older, quieter crowd.
"It's their lifestyle. Then you're in bed by 6 o'clock at night, sitting at home, out of trouble, out of sight, out of mind. You're not hooting and hollering on Duval Street, causing problems," he said. The Breakfast Club doesn't have formal meetings, though they do help out with Toys for Tots and Klein has been collecting blankets and towels for the animal shelter.
Just being able to hang out at a bar and talk to a friend - at 10 in the morning - that's important for these guys. Like a lot of places at the end of the road, the ethos in Key West is - no judgment.
"It's very much live-and-let-live, always has been," Klein said.
Including what time of day you have a drink.
