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Miami Herald,
May 14, 2004
POLITICS MAKES FOR ESTRANGED BARFLIES
Author: LESLEY ABARAVANEL, Special To The Herald
Edition: Final
Section: Tropical Life
Page: 22G
Article Text:
It's so delightful to see that scores of people in South Beach can actually be politically active, as they were last week when they marched on City Hall to prevent the 2 a.m. alcohol cutoff on all new establishments south of Fifth Street. VU's in-box was full of protest e-mails. One said, ``South Beach nightlife is under attack.''
And although this columnist sees nothing wrong with all establishments closing at a decent hour, it makes no sense to keep some open and others closed. Michael Capponi put together a posse of protesters who stormed City Hall. The only thing missing were models and servers passing around complimentary champagne. And it worked - sort of! While the commissioners decided to ban new clubs in the South Pointe and Sunset Harbor areas, they also abandoned their proposal to roll back alcohol sales from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m.
As a measure of good faith, Capponi threw a party hosted by Pamela Anderson's ex, Marcus Shenken! berg, at Prive last Friday night for Beach commissioners, Mayor David Dermer, residents and the party people. Open bar lasted until a reasonable midnight. But that wasn't enough.
Deep Throat, a reader who has written to express concern about the noise issue, wrote me and asked what plans promoters Capponi, Ingrid Casares, Alan Roth and Tommy Pooch have for South Beach, saying ``The only plan we residents have ever received from the clubs involves our moving out and going to Aventura, Pembroke Pines, or Orlando.
Capponi called the Prive party ``a peace meeting for everyone to get to know each other. From there we'll form a committee, which will be composed of myself, a bunch of club owners and neighbors. We will meet as many times as we need to. Each side will give their opinions. We'll meet then with the city and propose a plan that goes from cleaning up the streets, sanitation, more controllable noise around the area to more police. It's premature at ! this point to propose a plan without hearing specific complaints, but that's where we stand.''
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