{"id":5866,"date":"2025-10-16T01:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/5866\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T01:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:50:08","slug":"massive-fire-sparks-at-popular-tampa-dog-bar-that-closed-back-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/5866\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive fire sparks at popular Tampa dog bar that closed back in June"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TAMPA, Fla. – Tampa<\/a> firefighters battled a fire Wednesday evening at a building that once housed Pups Pub, a popular Tampa dog bar on Kennedy Boulevard that was closed down back in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Tampa Fire Rescue crews said they responded to a trash fire in the 100 block of South Westland Avenue \u00a0just after 7:15 p.m. Once they arrived at the scene, firefighters found heavy smoke and flames coming from the front porch of the vacant building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy: Tampa Fire Rescue. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Popular Tampa dog bar Pups Pub closing, owners cite changes to state regulation enforcement<\/a><\/p>\n

Officials said it was deemed a second-alarm fire to request additional resources due to its intensity and the multiple exposures around the building. Crews said they even evacuated the Circle K fuel station and an apartment building near the former pub as a precaution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fire was brought under control within 30 minutes of crews arriving at the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy: Tampa Fire Rescue. <\/p>\n

Both directions of Kennedy Boulevard were closed down as crews continued to work at the scene. Crews said there are no reported injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Tampa Fire Marshal’s Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy: Tampa Fire Rescue. <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

The once popular Tampa dog bar closed its doors back in June. The Pups Pub’s owners cited a year-long battle over changes to enforcement of state regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ: New program training HCC students to be mechanics aims to tackle City of Tampa workforce shortage<\/a><\/p>\n

Pups Pub originally opened in 2020 after the Florida Department of Health approved dog bars across the state. The bar’s owners said back in June that the business passed all health inspections during its first two years of operation, and a second location opened in downtown Orlando in 2022.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy: Tampa Fire Rescue. <\/p>\n

However, things took a turn that same year when a newly-promoted FDOH official “unilaterally reversed the department’s interpretation, deciding that operating an indoor\/outdoor dog bar \u2013 which had been fully approved and compliant under FDOH jurisdiction for years \u2013 was suddenly prohibited.”<\/p>\n

Pups Pub took legal action against FDOH, which said dogs are not permitted inside a business where anything consumable is served \u2013 even ice. The bar’s owners argued the state was misinterpreting its own food regulations.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story was released by Tampa Fire Rescue and also contains previous FOX 13 News reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tampa<\/a>Fire<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – Tampa firefighters battled a fire Wednesday evening at a building that once housed Pups Pub,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[855,47,629,115,135,137,136,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-5866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-fire","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-hillsborough","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tampa","13":"tag-tampa-headlines","14":"tag-tampa-news","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}