John Shubin runs his law practice out of a squat four-story building near the downtown Miami Burdines, and he lives in Coral Gables, but right now he is the hottest attorney in Miami Beach. Along with his partner Jeffrey Bass, Shubin has, during the past year, become the legal catalyst…

Attorneys John Shubin and Jeffrey Bass argue that any pending waterfront project that has been granted “design bonuses” increasing its size should be put to a citywide vote. Here’s a list of development projects that could be affected, according to the city’s planning department: *Ocean Parcel, Ocean Drive and Biscayne…

A few million gallons of ink and half a forest of newsprint have been devoted to stories about the little pamphlet that recently circulated around Killian High School. No doubt about it, the story has been worth at least the amount of coverage it’s getting. Nine high school students were…

North Miami’s Audio Vision Studios is bristling with brass. Squeezed inside a tiny recording studio is Duffy Jackson’s nine-piece swing ensemble. After a count-off from Jackson, a rotund drummer, the band rips into “Tiny’s Blues,” a 50-year-old tune that Jackson has updated with a funk beat. The trumpets, saxes, and…

The time has come once again to invoke Miami’s winter flock of turkey vultures as convenient metaphor. Though the real-life carrion corps continue to favor the downtown courthouse as a perch, their figurative brethren have lately been eyeing nearby county hall. The State Attorney’s Office continues its investigation of Miami-Dade…

“This park’s always had problems, you know,” Helen Prater says. “It’s an old park, the plumbing’s old. “They say it’s an eyesore,” she adds, referring to the residents of the neat single-family homes that border the dilapidated Villa Fair Trailer Park on the south and west. “And you know what?…

After a turbulent 1997, the public and private entities that run troubled Metrozoo seem to be taking the first tentative steps toward peace. Though they have not yet embraced warmly, the county staff of Metrozoo and the nonprofit Zoological Society of Florida have at least relaxed their grip on each…

The local independent film East of Overtown is not supposed to be a comedy. But this chronically underfunded, perpetual work in progress has threatened for some time to become a comedy of errors. Despite the dead-serious subject matter it fictionalizes (especially the Lozano and McDuffie riots), the seven-year-old process has…

Walter Troutman’s two-story penthouse atop the original Jockey Club high-rise, which he designed specifically for himself when he built the place in 1968, is anachronistically opulent, with its spiral staircases, panoramic view of the Intracoastal, and indoor pool on the upper level. Still, with all the plaques, magazine covers, snapshots,…

James and Emma Somerset say they were just trying to help their son and his girlfriend escape the dangers of Liberty City and begin a new life in Columbus, Ohio. Their August excursion to Miami to pick up the girlfriend and her children began as an errand of mercy, but…

Three weeks after withdrawing his name from consideration for the job of Miami Beach Police Department public information officer, Jack Sullivan still feels betrayed. When he first submitted his application for the newly civilianized post in September, he knew he was walking into something of a war zone: Relations between…

The savvy politicos’ approach to next Tuesday’s Miami Beach elections has been relatively simple: Position yourself as a staunch advocate of “controlled growth” and tar your opponent — by any means necessary — with the Portofino brush. With the passage in June of a charter amendment calling for a citywide…

Sucked into a narrow aisle at the Midem Latin American and Caribbean Music Market, among the glad-handing industry types and overlapping rhythms of reggae, salsa, soca, and samba, was the tiny booth belonging to Ahi-Nama Music, a Los Angeles-based licensing and distribution firm. A massive television set faced outward from…

While being driven up U.S. 1 through Coconut Grove on her way to the Alliance Film and Video Co-op in Miami Beach, filmmaker Doris Wishman muses about the appropriateness of the title she’s chosen for her comeback project. “What do you think of Dildo Heaven?” she asks of the film’s…

The calls keep coming in to the Dade County offices of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. Those funny-looking packs of cigarettes have been circulating for more than two years, but people still raise an eyebrow when they see a small red sticker on one side of their…

In his autobiography, Malcolm X describes what he calls “fishing” expeditions: Nation of Islam members trying to recruit new adherents. Sitting in the cramped office of Automotive Plus, 62-year-old Isiah El-Amin wipes from his hands the fine blue dust of automotive paint he has sanded from a battered Ford. Accompanied…

It’s still early in David Dermer’s campaign for the Miami Beach City Commission. Plenty of flesh still to be pressed, luncheons to be attended, endorsements to be gathered, and issues to be advocated before the November election. For Dermer this is a different game entirely from the single-issue campaign he…

Hispanics make up some 50 percent of the population of Miami Beach. They currently make up zero percent of the city commission. But not for long. Though they lag behind as a percentage of registered voters — at roughly 35 percent — Hispanics will play a greater role in November’s…

Do you love pot? Do you really love pot? Do you love pot so much that you think you just can’t get through the day without a joint or five or six? If you consistently wake-and-bake (and eat-and-bake, and watch-TV-and-bake), then Uncle Sam wants you. No, not to bust you…

Ambrose Sims had a bad experience at Beach Towing a couple of years back. In December of 1995, the seventeen-year veteran Miami Beach cop got into a scuffle at the Dade Boulevard tow yard and suffered minor cuts while attempting to make an arrest. The case made headlines when well-known…

Despite the Clinton administration’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which has been in effect since 1994, the actual rules governing the presence of homosexuals in the military haven’t really changed. If you’re out, you’re still out. Miami Coast Guardsman James Dunning is definitely the former, and he has been…

There’s a devil in Eddy Mir’s speakers. Well, maybe not in them. Perhaps it’s underneath, slithering around in the wafer-thin gap between the chassis of the right speaker and the four-legged platform that elevates it to waist height. The demon might have wrapped its evil hands around the steel posts…