Bars fight to be anointed Papa's local of choice

In life, Hemingway liked good sport. He certainly enjoyed a good drink. So the author would probably have enjoyed the row that has erupted between two bars in Key West, both of which are claiming to be his favourite drinking joint.

The Guardian reports that forty-three years after his death, the owners are at odds over which is the "original Sloppy Joe's," the reputed preferred watering hole of the Nobel Prize-winner during the 12 years he lived in Florida.
At stake is £5.4m in marketing and merchandising rights.

Chris Mullins, chief executive of Sloppy Joe's Bar, has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the owners of the neighbouring Captain Tony's Saloon, demanding they cease describing their pub as the original. "We just want to protect our marque," Mr Mullins said. "Sloppy Joe's is world famous, Captain Tony's is not."

But locals say both are right - that the first Sloppy Joe's opened in a former morgue on the site now occupied by Captain Tony's in 1933, but that Hemingway, known to regulars as Papa, drank in both and even bankrolled landlord "Sloppy" Joe Russell's move to the new location in 1937.