the third world in miami beach

8/12/2019 The Third World in Miami Beach

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

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The Flame Caffe & Grill , 447 Espanola Way, 305 397 8950

THE THIRD WORLD IN MIAMI BEACH I am tired of being told Miami Beach is not the United States.

24 February 2014

By David Arthur Walters MIAMI MIRROR

MIAMI BEACHThe failure of code enforcement officials of the City of Miami Beach to do their duty is costing Antonio Halabi, owner of Flame Caffe & Grill on South Beachs famed Espanola


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want to sit inside. However, I refuse to break the law by putting out tables and chairs that are not permitted, as the other restaurants do, so I suffer even greater losses.

He said had he checked the public records, to discover that one restaurant had a permit to place 32 chairs in a mere 37 square feet, and had only paid the concurrency fee for 8 chairs. He discovered that another establishment had operated a sidewalk caf for a full year without any permit at all.

I took a look at the permits he had collected, and then I counted the seats at three restaurants. One, with 50 seats permitted, had 62 persons seated when I took my count, an excess of 12 seats. Another, with 94 seats permitted, had seated 160 souls, 66 seats over the number permitted. The third had only 30 of 51 seats permitted, or 21 unlawful seats.

He said he reported the violations to the Code Compliance Division, not because he wanted to

make trouble

for

his

neighbors,

but

because

he

wanted

to

abide

by

the

law

the

best

he

could,

and he believed the law should be evenly enforced to protect him from damages. His complaint was really against the citys code compliance organization, not against the neighbors who were taking advantage of the citys negligence and selective code enforcement. Code Compliance officers required him to file complaints against his neighbors before it would enforce the law to mitigate his losses.

However, although Code Compliance officers took a few steps to correct the violations, the over seating and other obvious violations persisted, and he was identified to his neighbors as the complainant even when his complaint was made anonymously. Furthermore, Code

Compliance officers began to harass his business, and went so far as to fine him $250 for a violation that was not specifically defined by the code. To wit, he had moved his fans under the awning of his restaurant to protect them from rain for two hours. The fans were permitted to be at certain places on the sidewalk, and he moved them within the area simply to protect them, which is not prohibited by the code, he said. He did not retain an attorney, and Chief Special Master Abe Laeser let the fine stick. At this writing, Laeser has refused to rehear the case after Halabi reiterated that the violation had no basis in law given the factual circumstances.

He then

took

me

on

a walk

along

Espanola

way

and

showed

me

multiple

violations,

such

as

tables and chairs, planters, and unused space heaters placed outside of approved sidewalk cafes areas. His neighbor had placed its hosting stand and sign out into the street so that it blocked the view of his own entrance. Indeed, when I was initially searching for The Flame, I thought his next door neighbors entrance was to The Flame.


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When we returned to The Flame, Halabi showed me how he kept his own heaters inside in a storage area in back of the kitchen when not in use.

I had already deemed Halabi fastidious after taking a look at his kitchen and observing him attending to his customers. When out of town, he watches over the restaurant with its cameras and communicates with staff about details.

The Flame Caffe & Grills immaculate kitchen

Still, nothing is perfect, and, even if everything were perfect, code enforcement officers can trump up violations out of thin air. Who wants to pay a lawyer $1,000 to prevent the Special Master from approving a $100 or $250 fine, and another $5,000 to appeal it to the circuit court? So here he was, fretting over the correct placement and height of his own planters while I was there, which he used to barricade his tables from the sight of parked cars, used condoms, cigarette butts, and vagrants looking for coins and butts to smoke. Was the little sign with the name of his restaurant on the door too big, or did it need a permit? He expected code compliance officers to continue to intimidate him over every little detail, no matter how trivial, for objecting to the citys bad policy. Yet other establishments can do as they please with impunity, drawing an occasional warning if they do not make waves and just go along.

I observed the traffic flow for awhile. What he said was true. Based on revenue lost per seat, I estimated that the lack of enforcement of the code in respect to his neighbors and the citys selective enforcement against his restaurant was costing him a thousand dollars per hour in revenue during the busy period I observed. I guessed that he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue since opening The Flame in August 2011. The deficit was due to the misguided traffic. It certainly is not due to his reputation among professional critics and customers for good service and large portions of good food at a reasonable price. Of course the


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overwhelmingly good reviews are sometimes punctuated by horror stories due to circumstances Halabi was quick to apologize and offer accommodations forhe is generous to a fault. Every South Beach restaurant owner suffers some horror stories. They can relate how difficult it is to find and keep good staff in this area, especially when business suffers due to

lousy city administration.

Halabi said he is not about to put his tail between his legs and tolerate a diseased enforcement system. After all, he was educated as a medical doctor before taking over his fathers construction business. His wife also appreciates universally applied laws. Her father founded the chemical industry in Valencia, Venezuela, after receiving his degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University. Her parents, now deceased, were Italian and Spanish, while Antonio is of Armenian and Corsican extraction. She is 43, he 45. They were sweethearts when young, eventually married, and are blessed with two boys.

Cristina and I watched American movies together when we were kids. Oh, how we dreamed of coming to America! You know, movies advertised how great the United States was. Rocky IV was about patriotism. When Rocky Balboa successfully defended his World Championship title, beating Ivan Drago, the Russian challenger, who had Cuban and Soviet trainers, we Venezuelans cheered because the United States was supposed to be good and Russia was supposed to be evil.

Valencia is an industrial city where big American companies do business, so we sent our boys to the American schools there. And then we came to Miami Beach with big expectations. I invested a lot of money to come to this country and start this business. It would have cost me less to immigrate to the Midwest than here. I followed all the rules. I followed even the silly


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rules because one should not disobey laws even if they are silly. And then I discovered from Code Compliance that the City of Miami Beach enforcement officers are like the ones people complain about in Venezuela. Compliance officers are sent to my restaurant to intimidate me because I complain about the unfair system of enforcement.

I like Americans, but I hate the City of Miami Beach now because of Code Compliance. If I did not have this business, I would leave here and never return.

I told him that a gentleman who had owned a restaurant on Washington Avenue believed he was discriminated against by compliance officers because he was Muslim, and he was afraid to say so lest the city retaliate against him.

One of the biggest complaints we have here, I said, is that people who complain about the selective, random, and lackadaisical enforcement of the city ordinances are retaliated against.

His

name is

Mohsen.

He

had

big

hopes

for

his

business,

but

he

eventually

moved

away,

disgusted with South Beach. By the way, is Halabi a Muslim name?

Halabi sounds like a Muslim name, he answered, but no, we are not Muslims. Some members of my family were Christian Armenians who fled Turkey when Armenians were being murdered. Some of my ancestors arrived and stayed briefly in Aleppo, Syria, before coming to Venezuela. Halabi means from Aleppo.

Protestors in Venezuela, New York Times

Our city government might be called a Third World government, I remarked. I see the opposition called the Venezuelan government a Cuban style dictatorship.


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That is not true, he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Look, I am a businessman, not a politician or activist. I do not want to offend my country or yours. Every businessman knows what the main problem is in Venezuela. You can make plenty of money in Venezuela if you want to. That is not the problem. The problem is that somebody will steal it, and your property

and your life are not well protected. If you have some money, you might be kidnapped at any time. I want to see life and property protected, and people treated equally under the law everywhere.

Well, please remember that Miami Beach is different than the rest of the country. It is not like the United States in some ways. Each state of the United States has a right to be different.

I am tired of being told that Miami and Miami Beach is not the United States. Please do not tell me that. The United States should be in every state and city, in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Every state should have freedom, but they should all have security so people have

equal opportunity; not like here, where the city does favors, retaliates against people for complaining. No, I want the city to correct the Code Compliance Division. I will take this thing to the end. I do not care if I lose my business or how much it costs me. This is not about money. There comes a time when you cannot take injustice any more, a time when evil builds up and you cannot tolerate it any more. You have an expression in English. He paused, grasping for words.

We call that moment a crisis, I said, a breaking point or tipping point. There was an American movie about a guy who said he was madder than hell and could not take it anymore, so he publicly protested. Many people joined him and things started to change. I do not remember the end.

I expressed some doubt whether Halabi could obtain any satisfaction from Robert Santos Alborna, Director of the Code Compliance Division, or from Hernan Cardeno, a police officer demoted to oversee the division while Santos Alborna was under investigation by the FBI subsequent to the arrest of several code compliance officers. The Code Compliance Division was characterized as a RICO organization in press accounts based on the reading of arrest affidavits and indictments. A number of grievances had been asserted against Santos Alborna in the past. He appeared to be untouchable, protected by the city managers office.

Jorge Gonzalez, the longstanding city manager at the time of the latest wave of FBI arrests, was faulted for insufficient oversight of the citys feudal like departments. He was forced to retire by a reformist faction of embarrassed commissioners. A number of candidates for the professional manager job were recommended by an independent recruiting firm, but Jimmy Morales, a wellliked political insider who has no municipal or hands on business management experience on his resume, was shoed in as city manager pending an expected run for governor.


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Morales, a Miami Beach High and Harvard Law School grad, served the City of Miami Beach as its Chief Special Master from 2005 2007, presiding over the quasi judicial city magistrate entity that judges local code violations. The Special Master office has been criticized for being a tool of the city administration rather than a peoples court established to protect the people from

selective enforcement, and for its tendency of leniency towards influential violators and harshness towards small businesses. The city has refused to account for its writeoffs and mitigations, so it is difficult to prove otherwise.

In his November 8, 2012, letter presenting his credentials to commission, Morales stated, I am intimately familiar with building, permitting and code enforcement issues.

I asked Halabi if he had contacted Morales about Code Compliance issues. After all, people are waxing enthusiastic about his management style, including his accessibility to ordinary people.

His office

refused

to

set

up

an

appointment

with

me,

and

referred

me

to

an

underling

whom

I

had already spoken with and who did nothing to help.

Halabi said he had met with a former commissioner, who informed him that he was sponsoring a whistleblower ordinance that would award people like him $5,000.

That amount, observed Halabi, would be small compensation and consolation for the aggravation and losses he had suffered from the Code Compliance Division. And again, for him, it was the principle of the thing, and not the money that was important.

What good does it do to pay off informers when nothing is done with the information to correct the abuse?

I assured Halabi that he was not alone. His complaint is commonplace although seldom heard except during arrest scandals. I personally know several businessmen who picked up and left our beautiful city on the beach, taking care not to look back over their shoulders. It has been suggested to me by a high official that I should leave instead of exposing maladministration and misprision.

Still, believe it or not, I was moved to close my interview with Halabi with a patriotic speech:

Mr. Halabi, I am of the Fourth World, a native gringo who feels alienated in his own country. I am a foreigner here without a country to return to. I would go a travel agency and buy a ticket home, but I do not know where my country is anymore. I am doing my best to make my home here, with one foot already in the grave. We like to say that your home is where your heart is, and you have put your heart here for awhile. I believe you will feel differently about this place and the United States as you stand up to the official bullies and gain their respect. You may


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discover that you are not alone, that many local people including prominent people share your concerns. You will discover that the community is yours for the asking, if you want it.

the third world in miami beach

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