Five Things We Learned This Week

From the city being a lauch program to fight prescription abuse to the winner is voted up to have Clearwater's best customer service, here are the five top stories from Clearwater Patch last week.

1.  Pinellas County is cracking down on “pill mills,” and authorities aren’t shy about bragging about it.

In a campaign to wage war on the abuse of prescription pills, Pinellas County has even taken to billboards as both a form of bragging and a warning to street dealers of prescriptions.

The first of these billboards was at 1945 Sunset Point Road in Clearwater, between Hercules and Keene Road on the south side of Sunset Point Road.

2. A Clearwater couple was found dead at their residence Monday morning and authorities suspect the deaths were a murder-suicide.

Per Clearwater police, Robert Polukoff, 48, and his wife Irene Polukoff, 49, of 2532 Sweetgum Way, were found dead this morning by their son, whose name police have not released.

Based on evidence at the scene and a troubled recent history between the Polukoff's, Clearwater police suspect Robert Polukoff gunned down his wife, shooting her multiple times before turned his weapon on himself.

3.  An autopsy report released by the Pinellas County Medical Examiner to Palm Harbor Patch found that synthetic pot intoxication was a contributing factor in the drowning of Palm Harbor University High grad Logan Kushner. The Medical Examiner ruled the 19 year-old's death as accidental. 

Kushner was found unresponsive in the water at Clearwater's Kapok Park in the early morning of Jan. 8. Investigators say Kushner and a friend were smoking the herbal incense "Jazz" at the park, when Kushner began acting strangely and jumped into the creek. The friend left Kushner at the park, because he had to be home in time for his curfew. According to Clearwater Police, some of Kushner's friends later went back to the park and found him 

4.  We started with 64 businesses in mid-March, but in the end there could be only one champion of customer service in Clearwater: .

The downtown fitness center ran away with the crown in our tournament, with strong support from Patch readers and customers.

Here's what some of our readers had to say in :

5. A group effort brought Easter dinner to 60 families on Thursday including the Ridgecrest and Highpoint neighborhoods. Since 2003 several community partners have helped provide holiday meals by identifying families in need, donating money and distributing the food.

Pinellas County Sheriff's deputies from the Community Policing Unit and the Greater Ridgecrest Area Youth Development Initiative (GRAYDI) helped identify the families in need.

The deputies in the Community Policing Unit "are the problem solvers in the agency. They are people who look at the problem itself and any triggers such as environmental issues...from street light repairs to the need for senior services," said Captain Teri Dioquino.