Janelle Irwin Taylor
The idea was brewing, right along with his brewery. And now it’s official.
Mike Harting, co-owner of 3 Daughters Brewing in the Grand Central District of St. Petersburg, is running for the St. Pete City Council in District 3.
“I grew up in St. Pete and have watched it become the vibrant city it is today. It’s up to us to protect and provide the opportunity for all our residents to live the life they work so hard for,” Harting said.
“Working together with fresh ideas, we can continue to improve public safety, repair and rebuild our aging infrastructure, and bring great paying jobs to our neighborhoods. Leigh and I raised our 3 Daughters in St. Pete, and we’re excited about our campaign focused on creating opportunity for future generations.”
Harting is running for the seat currently held by Ed Montanari, who is leaving office due to term limits and is running for a House seat.
Harting launched 3 Daughters Brewing based on a simple, yet somehow also really complicated question: “How many beers does it take to put three daughters through college?”
He, along with his wife, Leigh Harting, and his business partner, Ty Weaver, decided to find out. And 3 Daughters — named to honor Mike and Leigh’s three daughters, Meadow, Livvi and Madi — was born.
Weaver, sadly, passed away last March in a tragic motorcycle accident. He was 3 Daughters’ head brewer and the brains behind not just its beverages, but also much of the design.
The brewery opened in 2013 as a small 1,600 square-foot tasting room. Today, it has grown into a massive operation with several tasting rooms, event and concert space and a much larger brewery footprint. The brewery serves more than 250,000 patrons annually.
The Hartings have opened another tasting room in Clearwater and have an airport location at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport. And they’ve grown beyond beer, too, now serving and selling at every major retailer, amusement park, liquor store and most restaurants throughout Florida, everything from craft brews to canned cocktails, energy drinks and nonalcoholic beverages.
Harting wants to bring his business success to city government. His platform centers on fiscal responsibility while also reducing city taxes and fees to help with the ongoing affordability issues plaguing areas like St. Pete and beyond. He also wants to focus on working with employers to ensure residents have access to good-paying jobs and to streamline government regulations to attract new job creators. He is also running on a pledge to work toward improving the city’s aging infrastructure.
Harting has lived in St. Pete since 1977. He attended Shore Acres Elementary after his father, a Vietnam veteran, was assigned to MacDill Air Force Base.
Harting is a graduate of the University of Florida and, after moving back home to St. Pete, began a fruitful career as a joint venture partner for Outback and later a partner in Bella Brava on Beach Drive.
3 Daughters Brewery is known throughout St. Pete not just for its tasty beverages and lively entertainment venues, but also as a charitable beacon. The company has worked with more than 150 local charity projects each year, including a line of kid’s beverages served with the “Men in the Making” program in Pinellas County School.
3 Daughters was also one of the first in the nation to utilize its production facility to make and distribute — for free — hand sanitizer during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when stores were struggling to keep commercial products on shelves.
The District 3 race is already a crowded one. It features restaurateur Pete Boland, affordable housing advocate Nicholas Carey, sales executive Juan Lopez Estevez and Treasure Island and Madeira Beach Chamber of Commerce CEO Barry Rubin.
