The Meaning of Yellow at Las Olas Cafe

8/13/2019 The Meaning of Yellow at Las Olas Cafe

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

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Vehicles parked at three of four yellow curbed corners during slow period

THE MEANING OF YELLOW AT LAS OLAS CAF

A Colorful Sign of the Citys SelectiveEnforcement Culture

13 March 2014 Update Dedicated to J.P. Morgan

By David Arthur WaltersMIAMI MIRROR

Miami BeachWhat do the yellow curbs mean at the Las Olas Caf intersection onSouth Beachs 6thStreet and Euclid Avenue?

Las Olas Caf customers, especially Police Officers, Code Compliance Officers, ParkingEnforcement Officers, and Sanitation workers, please park your vehicles at the yellowcurbs for as long as you want without getting a ticket, even when a fresh coat of paint isbeing laid down by Public Works. Never mind the No Parking Anytime Tow-Away-Zone


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Signs, or the Loading Zone Tow-Away-Zone 7AM-6PM signs. And if you need todouble-park at the yellow curb beside the caf to get your breakfast orcaf con leche, noproblem. God Bless America, Law Olas Caf is a free country, almost as free as the ThirdWorld when it comes to traffic laws.

Taxis love the Color Yellow at Las Olas

The intersection is hazardous to ignorant drivers and pedestrians alike, especially whentall trucks obscure the stop sign eastbound on 6 thStreet so that drivers unaware of thesituation proceed at risk of killing or maiming a pedestrian stepping out from the front


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of the truck into the normally unheeded crosswalk, or risk killing or injuring drivers andpassengers in T-boning incidents.

Parking Enforcement(actual enforcement would kill the business)

Brisk business comes and goes suddenly at Las Olas Caf, the busiest times being in themornings and early afternoons. Suddenly the intersection becomes chaotic with driversrunning the signs, making u-turns, parking and double parking at the yellow curbs.Frightened residents occasionally yell angrily in ignored crosswalks as officials stand bysipping their coffee, wondering why idiots get mad.

Whats wrong withthat idiot? Doesnt he know where he is? asked one official.

Where is the stop sign?

I proposed two years ago that stop signs be placed on both sides of 6th Street goingeastbound at Euclid Avenue so that, if one sign is obscured by illegally parked trucks,then oncoming drivers might see the stop sign on the other side of the street. Mayheaven forbid putting stop lights there as has been done at similarly busy intersections,as that might dampen business at the citys favorite coffee hole in the wall.


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Tow truck drivers stop for caf con leche before towing other violators elsewhere

My plea for the safety precaution fell on deaf ears because there had not been enoughaccidents there yet. That is, the risk was simply worth taking. But I did get a few stopsigns placed at other intersections on an adjacent block, where I photographed carsspinning on their tops after taking the corners too fast. And I took a photograph a blocknorth on Euclid Avenue of a man unconscious after being struck in the crosswalk by apickup truck. The driver claimed that the bicyclist ran into his truck. A passenger in thetruck, and a witness to the accident who said it was the drivers fault, hurried fromthescene without speaking to police officers.

Commercial Loading & Blue Meter Removed, Tow Zone lengthened, to no avail


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This month Jimmy Morales, our faux reformist city manager, said he thought puttingstop signs on both sides of 6thStreet for eastbound drivers to notice was a good idea.Shortly thereafter a Public Works truck parked at the yellow curb on the northwestcorner of the famous intersection. I figured the official was just getting coffee. However,two days later, the curbs were getting a fresh coat of yellow paint, as if drivers arevisually deficient. No stop sign has been erected on the other side of the street yet/

The wet paint did not deter drivers from parking at the yellow curbs. One travelcompany van parked right under the often obscured sign for nearly an hour as the driverpatronized the caf without tourists in tow.

I was observed taking a few photographs of the situation.

There is always someone saying, Do not step over this line, a gentleman looking myway said in a voice reeking with contempt.

Another man took me aside to say, Las Olas is protected by the police and Complianceso customers can park at the yellow curbs. Compliance allowed the old owner to operatea sidewalk caf without a permit, but made the new owner take away the tables andchairs from the sidewalk because there was no permit.

Police presence in the hood is always very welcome regardless

Not true, I said. The Finance Department showed me that the previous owner had

been paying for a sidewalk caf all along, although I dont know why he would pay for itprior to the chairs and tables being put out at the end of 2010. I should confirm the cashwas really received.

But the sale agreement should say the license goes with the caf.


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No, two different persons are involved, a corporation and a limited liability company,

so the new owner must apply for a new license. You cannot use someone elses driverslicense, for example.

Still Las Olas was protected. Las Olas was where you could make the right connection if

you wanted some help from the police or compliance. Remember the F.B.I. arrests?How do you think those guys got hooked up?

Here we go again, I thought, more to the Las Olas conspiracy theory about the latestwave of corruption that swept over the beach.

Still, there might be something to what the guy said, I considered, so I kept listening ashe told me about the Yellow Curb War. Stay tuned.

# #

UPDATES BELOW


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UPDATE: 13 March 2014

Besides the annual fees that owners of sidewalk cafs must pay for the areas they use within

the public right away, they must also pay, before their caf is permitted, a one-time fee called a

concurrency fee of $350 to $500 for each seat.

Tui Munday, Senior Planner for the Planning Department, confirmed on 12 March that her

department keeps the records of concurrency fees, and that it has no record of payment of

those feesfor a sidewalk caf at the Las Olas Caf address. Therefore it appears that there may

have been some favoritism or negligence if not corruption after all, at least in regards to that

substantial fee.

A public records request for records on a few other sidewalk cafes on Espanola Way, a popular

South Beach location, indicate that choice restaurants had not paid their concurrency fees, and

that at one location the sidewalk area used was grossly understated, resulting in substantial

undercharges for the annual fees.

I am informed that an employee who served the city as its sidewalk caf coordinator has not

been seen for some time since the discrepancies were pointed out to the administration.

Antonio Halabi, the restaurant owner who pointed out numerous discrepancies because his

restaurant was suffering severe losses of revenue due to unpermitted seating at neighboring

restaurants because of the non-enforcement of relevant sidewalk caf laws by the Code

Compliance Division of the Building Department, alleges that he was confronted by one of the

owners of a nearby Cuban restaurant, and said that he has suffered continuing retaliation from

Code Compliance.

Halabi said he had been contacted by the FBI in connection with its continuing corruption

investigation although he had not initiated a complaint with that agency. The press has

reported that Roberto Santos-Alborna stepped down temporarily from his job as Director of

Code Compliance because he was the subject of a fruitless FBI investigation, and is now back at

the helm albeit overseen by Hernan Cardeno, a sworn police officer.

My Cuban-American confidant at Las Olas Caf insisted, on 12 March, that there was some

familiar or familial relationship between an arrested code enforcement officer and the former

owner of Las Olas Caf. He also said he was familiar with the sidewalk caf coordinator. If that

were true, nothing untoward should be read into it because the caf is in fact a popular

hangout for all sorts of city employees.


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However, since the caf lore is that the caf had to remove its sidewalk caf because it was no

longer protected by Code Compliance because a Mexican took over from a Cuban, and the

Cubans run Compliance,I referred the information to Internal Affairs. Code Compliance is not

a division of the police department; however, Internal Affairs has a public corruption officer

assigned to the FBI. Internal Affairs did not respond to my referral. The bottom line remains,that since a new entity bought the caf, it must apply for its own sidewalk caf permit and pay

the relevant fees.

The more cops around the better it is for the neighborhood

UPDATE: 13 March 2014

Real Estate developer Russell Galbuts Tremont Towing Company has painted one of its trucks

yellow to match the yellow curbs. Yellow taxi cabs naturally swarm to the location to match the

yellow curbs, sometimes covering all four corners as their drivers enjoy caf con leche.


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I spoke to J.P. Morgan, who owns a taxi cab company, sits on the Traffic and Parking Board, and

is lately known as The Destroyer, the political fixer who worked for mayoral candidate

Michael Gongora in the November elections and destroyed the reputation of commissioner

candidate Sherri Roberts, who she was allied with Gongoras opponent, Philip Levine, who won

the election.

Morgan was amused by the situation at Las Olas, observing that there was nobody to call to

enforce the law there since the violators included the police, parking enforcement officers, and

tow truck drivers.

Morgan is also a publisher: he published Sins of South Beach, the confession of his friend,

former Mayor Alex Daoud, who was convicted of public corruption, and he publishes City

Debate, an online magazine which he said has 100,000 subscribers. This article was submitted

to him for publication in February but has not appeared. He promised to blast my articles on

the discriminatory enforcement of sidewalk caf codes on Espanola Way to his 100,000subscribers, but failed to keep his word.

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The Meaning of Yellow at Las Olas Cafe