Professional Documents
Culture Documents
South Beach Seven Eleven Halloween Crash
South Beach Seven Eleven Halloween Crash
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The City of Miami Beach has a strong city manager, weak mayor form of government. City
managers may with impunity act as virtual dictators, placing themselves above the law
ordained by the political body, the city commission. Jimmy Morales, Esq., the current city
manager, however, is subject to the dictates of Mayor Philip Levine, who is a de facto strong
mayor by virtue of a so-called purchased majority on the commission and a city manager
subservient to his dictates.
For example, for last New Years Eve celebration on Espanola Way, Jimmy Morales waived the
requirements for the special event permit ordinance designed to protect the public although
the ordinance does not provide for such a waiver. One of the restaurant owners, whose request
for a special event permit had been denied as submitted too late, had for some time insisted
that code officers enforce the code equally for all restaurants on the street, including two other
restaurants that had applied for permits; those two businesses were eventually favored by the
waiver of all special event permit requirements. The troublemakers landlord, Scott Robins, who
owns the buildings along one side of Espanola Way, and who is a partner and close friend of the
mayor, brought a retaliatory eviction suit against the tenant as a result of his persistent
insistence on equal enforcement of the laws. The city manager allowed the celebration to
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Oh, someday the pizza people will be hit, said a worker repairing the damage at 7-Eleven,
and the city and the manager will be sued. Seven and eleven are lucky numbers.
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Pizza Rustica sidewalk caf corner permitted at 863 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
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La Pizzeria de la Lemoni unpermitted sidewalk caf corner at 4600 N.E. 2nd, Miami City
News accounts that at least ten people were injured on Saturday the 4th of October by a car
crashing into La Pizzeria de Lemonis unpermitted sidewalk caf at the corner of 46 th and
Northeast Second Avenue in Miami reminded me that, nearly four years prior, I had pointed out
to the Code Compliance Division and the City Manager of the City of Miami Beach that part of
Pizza Rusticas 22-seat sidewalk caf was dangerously perched on the corner of 9 th and
Washington Avenue.
Rustica seating on corner under umbrella endangers customers, I reported to Code
Compliance in 2010, impedes the fire department. Miami Beach ordinances mandate 5 corner
and crosswalk leeway, and maximum umbrella height of 6 inches.
City officials did not respond to my concern, which I posted on Miami Mirror for the benefit of
accident victims and their lawyers in the event of a crash. Given my experience as a pedestrian
with reckless and sometimes intoxicated drivers, I believe it was only a matter of time until
Rustica customers were maimed and perhaps killed while eating their pizza.
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Public safety is the very reason the Miami Beach sidewalk caf code specifies that cafs be at
least five feet away from corner curb cuts, pedestrian crosswalk signals, fire hydrants,
crosswalks and the like. New York City goes even farther to protect cafes from corner accidents,
which are quite common: nine feet from the corner is the rule, measured from the outer edge
of the sidewalk caf to either the curb line or the nearest obstruction.
I was not surprised by silence of public officials, for none of them will speak to be on the record
for publication. Press inquiries are referred to Nannette Rodriquez in the Communications
Department, and she has little or nothing to say about such embarrassments, especially when
pointed out by someone not a member of the citys handful of approved press organs, and is
internally infamous for not suiting the current regimes need for 100% appreciation of
everything it does.
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