Five months after a New Times cover story detailed allegations of deceitful and unethical business practices by John Svadbik, he continues to sell used cars. In fact, despite apparent financial problems, he is expanding the dusty lot of his primary dealership, Coconut Palm Auto Sales, located on South Dixie Highway…
It’s a poorly kept secret in the newspaper business: We journalists need experts, especially those who can eloquently agree with us. “Wouldn’t you say, professor, that corruption is common here?” a reporter might ask. “Indeed, double-dealing is rampant,” the pundit could reply. “Subtropical sleaze is slathered over us all. It…
Florida reporters love to quote him.Among the Morenistas are: “15” Tom Fiedler, opinion page editor, the Miami Herald 15 times between May 1997 and January 1998 “14” Jay Weaver, staff writer, the Sun-Sentinel, the Miami Herald 14 times between January 1998 and July 1999 “24” Karen Branch, staff writer, the…
For more than a decade the Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence (HOPE) has been fighting racism. If you discriminate, their lawyers will fry you. It’s been a good ride. But now, on the heels of a guilty plea by felonious employee Harriette Simmons for defrauding HOPE clients, a county audit…
The sight of the shirtless man, flat on his back, Walkman blaring, summarizes the state of live music in the famed Art Deco District. There he is, a semiconscious, apparently intoxicated gentleman in blue jeans and black deck shoes, dozing sloppily at the foot of a graffiti-scrawled, turquoise-color metal door…
As he walks across the lawn of Miami Beach’s Bass Museum, Leprechaun, a stocky drifter with a shaved head, apologizes for trespassing. Then the 30-year-old chuckles, realizing that he’s about to commit a more serious crime. “We’re going to pop meters,” he declares. Leprechaun, who declined to give his real…
Key Biscayne is perhaps the most bike-friendly town in South Florida. It’s a place where pros show off their carbon fiber Colnagos and 28-mile-per-hour pace. Congestion isn’t a problem on the key; intersections can be counted on one hand. In fact until recently high-speed renegades on two wheels flew through…
Seven teenage boys fall on their bellies and press M-16 semiautomatic rifles tightly against their shoulders. Wearing black boots, fatigues, and caps, they squeeze the triggers five times, the air erupting with eardrum-splitting explosions. Hot brass bullet casings scatter in all directions. The smell of smoke and gun lubricant mixes…
In November 1994, the United States had not yet gone loco for Latin pop music. Even so, old-school Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias had just finished the first of four sold-out shows at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and he was pumped. In the dressing room he recalled the…
To Israel Corporan parking tickets are part of the South Beach lifestyle. Although he pays the City of Miami Beach $260 for a yearly parking permit, it can take hours to find a slot near his apartment at 727 Collins Ave., he complains. So Corporan has concluded that breaking the…
Some notables are among the tens of thousands of South Floridians listed in Miami-Dade County’s database of unpaid parking tickets. Among the most prominent is Miami City Commissioner Tomas Regalado who, along with his son, Tomasito, has failed to pay $121 in overdue fines for three tickets. The first one…
How can you avoid paying fines after receiving parking tickets? Let New Times count the ways. You can: •change the name on your car’s title and get a new tag. Even if the state has determined that you are delinquent, it will allow an ownership transfer to a spouse or…
The city hall in Hialeah Gardens is inherently ugly. But the tiny building’s boxy concrete walls also are sullied by a garish, headache-inducing coat of sickly pink paint, with dark turquoise accents adding a further affront to the senses. Even transporting such horrendous colors into the City of Coral Gables…
To much of the republic, Miami means sex and fiscal mismanagement. Recent questions raised by a Palm Beach newspaper about a provocative calendar have improved and deepened that reputation. It is easy to see why the twelve months of the Female Firefighters of South Florida have attracted attention. Slick pages…
It’s 12:15 p.m. at Mary’s Restaurant on NE Second Avenue. The only meal served here is lunch, so this should be the busiest time of day. Yet the fourteen-seat eatery has no customers. Owner Osvaldo Perez and barmaid Luisa Serrano sit and stare out the front window. It’s been 30…
The City of Miami Police Department is no stranger to racial rancor. Arthur McDuffie, William Lozano, and Leonardo Mercado are all names that bring to mind cop-related riots that for a decade made the Magic City synonymous with race-related violence. Now comes a new spin. Eleven black and Hispanic officers…
Off Miramar Parkway, in a community studded with pricey identical houses, Trick Daddy sits in his living room watching the Lifetime channel. Trick (his given name is Maurice Young) is a rapper whose latest album, www.thug.com, is a national hit. Although the past six months has been a succession of…
Cuban band leader Roberto Torres rarely performs in Miami these days, but on a recent morning he is eager to reprise his personal hit parade for an audience of one. The venue: the office of his independent record label, Guajiro Records, located in a small warehouse in west Miami-Dade. The…
Why is this a story?” grumbles the weary drug enforcement agent, clad in black boots, black pants, black sidearm holster, and a black T-shirt with the words Six to ten seconds to make a first impression on the back. He stands guard near the rear entrance of a dingy, five-story…
William Vallenilla uses words like funky and artsy to describe his shop on the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and NW 69th Street. The eclectic 1600 square-foot space is filled with Gothic candelabras, 1920s Art Nouveau furniture and other used merchandise arranged according to theme. From the occult section to the…
About 250 freshmen fidget and murmur in the cavernous ballroom at Florida International University. The newcomers wait for the next segment of an orientation session FIU requires all incoming students to attend. Hanging on a wall above the stage is the university’s mascot, a large panther baring its fangs, slashing…
It is the waning afternoon hours of a special election day, July 29, and the scene at the Spanish-language radio station WQBA-AM (1140) is frenetic. It’s GOTV (Get Out the Vote) time — the final push. Inside the broadcast booth long-time political consultant Herman Echevarria and the mayors of Sweetwater…
