Ocean Drive Critic Let BangBros Shoot Porn on His Hotel Rooftop

Longtime Miami Beach activist Mitch Novick is best known for ranting about the "carnival-like atmosphere" on Ocean Drive. For the past several years, Novick — owner of the Sherbrooke Hotel at Collins Avenue and Ninth Street — has been a regular at city commission meetings and in local Facebook groups, where he shares the day-to-day horrors of public twerking and street fights.

"Stay away!" he wrote in an October Facebook post. "It's classless and trashy tonight on Ocean Drive."

This past January, Novick complained about a scantily clad model photographed on the steps of the Clevelander.

"Where does Clevelander's [owner] Mike Palma find these women?" he asked.
But a New Times tipster points out some history that seems to discredit Novick's role as Ocean Drive's unofficial morality cop. It turns out Novick allowed a BangBros production crew to shoot a porn scene on the rooftop of the Sherbrooke several years ago. The video, which features porn stars Sara Jay and Jessi Summers, can be found on multiple internet sites.

Reached this week, Novick admitted the video was filmed at the Sherbrooke and said he believes it was shot around 2004. "They paid to use the roof. I was fine with it," he said, adding that the filming occurred out of public view.

Novick said he has allowed two to three pornographic videos to be filmed at the Sherbrooke, the last one "over a decade ago."

"Back in those years, BangBros were very popular in South Florida," he said. "I sat in during much of the production. I have to say it was fascinating to learn the ins and outs of the porn industry."

Novick accused his rival Joshua Wallack, an owner of Mango's, of sending the video to New Times. Reached by phone, Wallack denied doing so but declined further comment. The two have been in a years-long dispute about noise restrictions and policing on Ocean Drive that culminated in Novick's arrest for stealing towels from Mango's in the summer of 2017. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges.

Novick said he sees nothing hypocritical about being both an Ocean Drive critic and a porn-shoot location broker. "I don't see the correlation," he said. "This has nothing to do with the deteriorated state of my entire neighborhood that I attribute to the failure of elected leaders to address the carnival-like circus atmosphere."