MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

Bodega Taqueria y Tequila - 1220 16th Street

CODE OFFICERS ATTACK SOUTH BEACH TACO CLUB

Mayor Philip Levine rumored to be behind alleged harassment
GOSSIP COLUMN
2 February 2015
Filed by David Arthur Walters
MIAMI MIRROR
Miami BeachA source once near to City of Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine said the
honorable mayor sicked the citys code compliance officers on the Bodega Taqueria y Tequila
because he was not pandered to when he visited the taco club and ordered a $12 Phili torta
de bodega made with short rib, oaxaca, rajas, potato sticks, and red chili crema.
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There were several orders ahead of the mayors, said the source, who said he did not want to
be named because the mayor is exceedingly vindictive. He said the mayors order was not given
priority because he was not even recognized, so he got into a huff and stomped out with a
grimace on his beet-red face.
Code compliance officers arrived within minutes of His Honors departure. A check of the citys
online code complaint system indicates they have plagued the establishment, behind which is a
faux speakeasy entered through the so-called meat locker door.

Other than one or two valid noise complaints, an anonymous person, rumored to be the mayor,
has been making invalid noise complaints against the taco club, which is licensed as a
restaurant and bar with dancing and entertainment permitted until 5 AM. An employee of the
establishment, who did not want to be named, said that the back of the club had been
soundproofed as a result of the noise complaints, and said he thought that the owners would
fight to the death the mayors rumored attacks on the nightclub.
When I checked the citys online complaint status system, I noticed a curious proactive
investigation had been conducted by a code officer on 30 December.
XC15008077 Proactive inspection. Monitoring location Bodega for BTR. 741
Upon further inspection all BTR/CU were displayed and current. Restaurant was
functions and catering to the public. No violation was observed. Patrol deemed
not valid. A. Tejeda (sic)
The Code Compliance Department is rarely proactive. Hernan Cardeno, the departments
director, whose integrity is unimpeachable, claims that there are occasional proactive
campaigns, but officers are usually too busy responding to complaints to write tickets for even
obvious violations like erecting signs without permits all over town.

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Cardeno assured me on a previous occasion that Mayor Levine does not intercede in code
compliance issues on behalf of his friends and business partners; in particular, developer Scott
Robins, with whom Levine has partnered with the city in a garage and retail center in Sunset
Harbour.

Levine-Robins-City development in front of Sunset Harbour Towers

Robins happens to own a nightclub at 743 Washington Avenue. He was cited and his event shut
down for not having a permit for an event held on his premises during Black Week aka Urban
Beach Week. That ticket was voided and the black promoter was fined by the city magistrate
for not having a special event permit because Robins was late paying his business tax license
fee for his regular permit. Robins reportedly pocketed the promoters $20,000 rental fee.
Cardeno has not yet addressed the question of whether or not the mayor would use city
resources to harass his enemies. Russell Galbut is rumored to be his arch enemy since he
mounted a poster of the mayors opponent, Michael Gongora, on his old South Shore Hospital
building on Alton Road.

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Further perusal of the online system reveals that either officer Tajeda missed a violation during
his inspection of the Bodega or that the place was being painted even after it was opened.
Miscellaneous ticketCE15003861, written by an unidentified code compliance officer and
dated 8 January cites the paint job on the front of the establishment:
PAINTING THE EXTERIOR OF THE BUILDING WITHOUT AN APPROVED PERMIT.
SEC. 142-1193(B) YOU CAN COMPLY OBTAINING A APPROVED PERMIT WITHIN
15 DAYS OF RECEIPT OF THIS NOTICE. RE: THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING HAS
BEEN PAINTED IN A BLACK AND WHITE CROSS PATTERN AND PINK, WHITE, AND
BLACK. THE PAINT JOB WAS APPROVED FOR WHITE PAINT ONLY.
Ticket XC15008394, written by an unidentified officer on that same day, also cites the paint job:
this building has just been painted without a permit on front of building and
does not have an approved city of miami beach color that pink is not to code
they need to follow the rules like all other owners! (sic)
A week later, on 14 January, Complaint CE15004138 cited the taco club:
Sec. 118-561(b) RE: Altered store front without obtaing a cert. of
appropriateness. Time of violation 11:11 a.m. T. Byars 715(sic)
I emailed Code Compliance Department Director Hernan Cardeno and his chief administrator
George Castell:
I have received a tip from a confidential informant who was close to the mayor
who said he believed the mayor personally instigated a retaliatory complaint
against Keith Menin's Bodega Taqueria y Tequila. I see this miscellaneous
violation (below) is outstanding. I understand from (an informant) that the
"mural" was approved by the Design Review Board. Is this citation just over a
technicality, that a mistake was made as to what was described on the permit
application? Which officer wrote this citation? Do building inspectors normally
cite building violations instead of compliance officers?
I had contacted Olivia, a reliable source of information in the neighborhood that I call West
South Beach because it reminds me of Upper West Side of Manhattan when it was beset with
an influx of Yuppies in the Eighties. Both Olivia and I haunted purportedly disreputable clubs in
Greenwich Village back in the glory days.
It was she who informed me that the design had been approved. She said that the 1220 16th
Street was one of many properties in West South Beach recently picked up by developer Russell

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Galbuts Galbutians, and that the taco club was operated thereon by his son Jared and his
nephew Keith Menin dba Menin Hospitality, in collaboration with the Opium Den Group.
She said the Galbutians had avoided going before the Land Use Board to get the nightclub
approved as a Neighborhood Impact Establishment by getting the Fire Department to sign off
that the restaurant and bar would only have a maximum occupancy of 185 people, just below
the 200 for which an impact approval would be needed. The Fire Departments discretion to
determine such matters is problematic considering past corruption indictments. So, you see, it
is not a nightclub per se. Coincidentally, bottle tables at the restaurant and bar go for $500,
a price that your typical West South Beach yuppies can presumably well afford.
She said Russell Galbut threw a party at Bodega to celebrate his petition campaign to bring a
Baptist Hospital clinic onto his property at 709 Alton Road as a tenant. He is developing several
properties including that one on the blocks he owns on both sides of Alton near MacArthur
Causeway, the main access to and from South Beach. His opponents, who are believed to be
allied with Mayor Levine therefore are dubbed Levinites, object to his grand plans on the
grounds that it would increase traffic entering and exiting the bridge to the mainland, and that
parking would be inadequate.

La Casa de Galbut 800 First Street

If traffic and parking were the real issue for old crony rent seekers, a moratorium would have
been declared on all development on the south end of the beach long ago. The One Percenters
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can never have enough, but who really needs more of everything when a limited supply and
strong demand would increase the value of what one already has? As for parking, Galbut will
take care of your parking needs both ways. If you do not park in his garage, he will have his
towing company tow your vehicle for you. Note that your friendly parking lot king is building his
new home on top of a parking garage over restaurants in South Pointe.

I dropped by the Bodega for a taco, wherein two cops were protecting tacos at the time. There
was a line, but it moved briskly, and my cheap $3 Aguacate Con Frijoles Avocado (black bean
refrito, cotija, lettuce, red chili cremataco) came out pronto. That is all I ordered because my
publisher, Three Stooges Publishing, for which I am publisher, editor, and writer, does not have
any budget to speak of. Someday, I will give a fair review of several taco joints when I find a
sponsor for my subjective taste contest.
The taco was scanty to say the most. But not bad considering that I was poisoned by a steak
taco I treated myself to on Washington Avenue as a birthday present to myself. Luckily, a
gentleman at Bodega with a $6 order of Chips and Salsa served with salsa verde, salsa ranchera
and salsa brava struck up a conversation with me and shared his bounty. What a friendly place,
I was thinking, when far into the conversation he mentioned that he was gay, emphasizing the
word gay. So what, I said to demonstrate I was unbigoted, and rambled on until he abruptly
got up and left. I got the picture. I am not so bad looking. When will women ever forgive me for
being poor and old? Perhaps sex, drugs, and hip hop music would motivate me to make a
fortune.
So, I speculated before I left, maybe Levine is having Bodega harassed not so much because he
was not catered to quickly enough, but because he perceives Galbut as his political archenemy,
someone who will bring his regime and real estate dreams down to earth on the beach. What
we may have here is a battle of titans, a war between the Galbutians and Levinites, from which
only Zeus could save the beach from overbuilding if not YHWY.
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Otherwise, why would Levine have the code compliance officers pick on Bodega? I submitted
the question to the community, and received seven reasons for the Top Ten Reasons in
response to that question, the other three to be supplied by the reader.
10. Management wouldn't honor his dubious "Mayor's Own Discount Card for a Free Drink."
9. "By golly, for what I paid for the job, what good is it if I can't bully people every now and
then?"
8. Had been reading a new how-to book, "Throw Your Weight Around & Get Your Way by
Shutting Things Down" by Gov. Chris Christie
7. Hasn't climbed down yet from the heady power trip of arm-twisting FDOT into finishing the
Alton Rd. big dig by his deadline.
6. Was pissed because his significant other his dog Earl -- was refused service.
5. The psychedelic effect of the multicolored decor caused him to spiral into a hallucinogenic
tizzy and lose his cool.
4. Levine was once a midget, was made fun of his whole midget life, but after he made a
gazillion dollars he paid for the very best midget cure, and when he saw the politically incorrect
sign at Bodega he became infuriated.

Midget ad quickly replaced due to scandal over political incorrectness

Now the citation for the mural or paint job on the face of the taco club remains open with no
response by deadline from George Castell or Hernan Cardeno to what appears to be procedural

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irregularities. No doubt the magician (lawyer) of the two has explanatory rabbits in the hat not
presently exhibited online to the public.
Would city officials actually approve of such a design? Who gets what in Miami Beach depends
on who the officials and the applicants are. And if no one complains, you might not even have
to ask for an approval. On the same day I had asked Castell about the Bodega ticket, I inquired
about another ticket written months ago, for a modular building sitting at 91 Collins Avenue
and serving for the last six years as a sales office for real estate titan Jorge Perez mammoth
South Pointe developments. Has the design covering the trailer been approved?

Castell said he thought an officer was following up on that old ticket. I responded that it should
be closed out one way or the other, and remarked that a Sweetwater truck driver was too busy
with his route to go over there for a photo shoot with his postmodern design.

This would be great design for a South Beach nightclub

Long ago I warned City Manager Jimmy Morales, Esq., henchman for the mayors majority on
the city commission, that he should make sure to reform the code compliance department, as
that department has not only been corrupted from time to time but it has been the source of
inferences that reflect badly on the city manager, the mayor and the commissioners. Perhaps
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the rumors about the mayors relationship with the taco joint are unfounded. Then again,
maybe not. At least they are fun in the telling.
##
Update (March 6, 2015)
Another, perhaps more authoritative source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
retaliation including the loss of his job, traffic tickets, and a SLAPP defamation suit, read this
article and alleged (hearsay) that the alleged Code Compliance crackdown on the Bodega had
nothing to do with Mayor Philip Levine not getting priority on a Phili Torta order. The alleged
real problem was that he had been denied entry by security to the faux speakeasy accessible
via the small meat locker door behind the taco trailer because the nightclub had reached the
maximum occupancy load certified by the fire department. His Honor was allegedly among
people outside who were refused entry as a result. That provoked his alleged hissy fit and the
ensuing Code Enforcement harassment alleged.
Olivia thought that account was plausible because the club had been warned that it would be
infiltrated by neighborhood activists, and heads counted therein so that the establishment
would be nailed on occupancy overload, in retaliation for the club having avoided hearings on
the impact the club would have on the neighborhood by inducing fire department officials to
understate the occupancy load. That may have led to tight security at the club. The State Fire
Marshal may be asked to investigate the calculation of occupancy loads by local fire safety
officials over the last few years to make sure the calculations have been in accord with scientific
methodology. An F.B.I. investigation without the knowledge of local police officials into
corruption within the fire and code compliance departments is believed to be ongoing by newly
trained agents from Quantico since the last spate of arrests that led to the downfall of the
previous city regime.

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