Local restaurateur Pete Boland running for mayor

This week, local businessman Pete Boland has filed to run for St. Pete’s next Mayor.

Boland, 37, is a registered Republican who was born and raised in St. Pete. He is well-known in the business community for his flagship restaurant The Galley, which opened in 2016.

Boland says “partisan politics has damaged the City’s progress” and that he is promoting a policy agenda that he calls “St. Pete First.” The policy focuses on lower taxes, increased government accountability, building more houses, modernizing the police, improving public schools, and serving as a champion of small business and the local hospitality industry, according to his press release.

Boland previously fought Mayor Rick Kriseman’s administration last year over the city’s mask mandate. His restaurants, The Galley and Mary Margaret’s Olde Irish Tavern, both received citations from the city for staff not wearing masks, according to the city.

He joins other mayoral candidates including council members Darden Rice and Robert Blackmon, former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, former council member and state Rep. Wengay Newton, Vincent Nowicki, Michael Levinson, Michael Ingram and Marcile Powers.

Find out more about the mayoral candidates via the Catalyst’s “My Mayor” podcast series.