The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Grand Opening...Grand Closing

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Restaurants have been closing en masse across the nation...but especially in Miami. Billy Corben welcomes Felix Bendersky, a restaurant realtor, to explain why. Latoya Ratlieff attended a peaceful protest in Fort Lauderdale, one of the many that this nation witnessed in 2020. A cop, who said protesters were jumping on her car, called in for backup. That's when Latoya was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, fracturing her eye socket. She joins the show to update us on what has happened since then. Plus, the Wheel of Despair Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I want to know why so many of your favorite Miami restaurants are closing. As a broker who specializes in restaurants, usually I get five calls a day from restaurant owners who want to sell. But now I've been getting 15 to 20 calls a day. If I'm getting those calls, it's never good. So let me break it down for you. Restaurants that should have closed the last summer stayed open, over leveraging themselves and waiting for the busy season.

One thing we learned was the busy season never came this year. Even during Art Basel, which should be one of the best weeks of the year for restaurants to make money was the worst performing Art Basel in five years. That is Felix Bendersky, founder of F&B Hospitality Brokerage. Good hair. Good hair. Thank you. Oh wait, him or me?

Above you. Your hair looks good. Thank you. That is a now viral video from January of this year in which Felix, who is a restaurant realtor, Roy is the best way to describe him. He basically brokers deals between landlords, property owners, and restaurateurs who want to open in the South Florida area. And so he predicted in January, January 15th to be precise in this now viral video, that there was a restaurant Armageddon inevitable in 2024

in which quote, everyone is gonna close at exactly the same time in the next few months. And I'm gonna tell you, I saw this video, I shared it on about January 15th, because it honestly just rang true to me. What I always say about Miami, Miami is the place where truth is hate and lies are love. Where we don't have reality, we have realty.

And this to me just sort of embodied that. This guy was the only truth teller, in my opinion, in Miami real estate. And I shared it, the thing exploded, and Felix started getting a lot of shit for it. And not just shit for it from outside, shit from inside, meaning his own clients. This is not a guy that benefits from telling the truth

about the Miami restaurant industry or the Miami real estate. And Felix is joining us now. Felix, here we are several months out. I wanna talk a little bit about the shit that you got for this video and Were you right you predicted a Miami restaurant Armageddon within a few months and it has been a few months So what was the fallout from your video and where are we at now? Fallout hasn't stopped. I think I took your place as the most hated person in Miami, based

in my field, in my industry. I don't think that I painted a very nice narrative for everybody trying to paint a beautiful picture of Miami and the money coming in, but I don't think I was off either. I think that me and a couple of people in my office were actually just going through the numbers and we counted 145 places that either have closed or are in the middle of closing since we shot that video January 15th. At the risk of stating the obvious,

this is incredibly important and consequential, Roy, because Miami is a hospitality town. We run on tourism. I mean, there's a lot of people in this economy who live not just paycheck to paycheck, but tip jar to tip jar who leave restaurants and nightclubs and, and, you know, food and beverage establishments and bars with the money from their shift that they need to live right now to pay their rent, to feed and clothe and house their families in an increasingly outrageously

unaffordable market down here. Felix though in March of 2021 you were singing a different tune. You told the Daily Mail that business is booming in Miami with restauranteurs fleeing New York during the shutdowns and you were getting as many as 150 groups reaching out to you in just a matter of a couple months looking for space flash forward three years restaurant Armageddon what happened. So I don't think I think people are very confused when I use the

words restaurant Armageddon if anything I don't think that the number has stopped I think the numbers actually gone up we actually get way more calls now. The problem is that the demand outweighs the inventory tremendously. So for everybody closing, you got 10 people ready to take their space because everybody knows that to build in Miami and dealing with the permitting,

it's just way easier and more likelihood of you opening if you took a second generation space. As opposed to having to build something out from scratch. Why is that? Talk a little bit about the inability of entrepreneurs to come in and I mean they're spending a ton of money it seems but not really able to get an operation going successfully after that. So you got to love our city. I think the one of the major things that changed was in 2019 Department of environmental Durham our favorite department in Miami actually had passed a new grease trap code because according to Them we're all going to be underwater in the next 20 30 years So any restaurant opening after 2019 either needed to get their grease trap replaced or updated.

And it's not a very big department and the permitting on that it's probably faster to build a skyscraper than to get a permit on that. So I want to understand because if there's all this demand, there doesn't seem to be a lot of likelihood for success. This is already incredibly competitive industry, the success rate in the FNB businesses was already even in the boom times pretty low. A lot of these places are going to, you know, to borrow a term grand opening grand closing, right?

These these places are going to come in and they're going to fail like a lot of the places before them. So what is going wrong? What is happening in the market right now where there's just restaurants are just failing? So I think there's several things to that. I think that number one, certain areas are over cannibalizing themselves. You know, how many 10,000 square foot restaurants can we have in a five block radius where your average price is going to be, you know, $500 a couple or $1,000 a couple. There's not enough people or lack of as many people

that used to come in the last couple of years as there is now. A lot of things that people don't take into consideration is that Miami is still not a 12 month a year city. As much as we all want it to be, it's just not. The third thing is a lot of the out-of-towners that come in, they have the, my baby is the prettiest baby mentality. You've never tried my pizza.

You've never tried my pasta. And I think that a lot of developers and landlords kind of cater to their ego, and that's where the problems start. So what are some of the worst cities or municipalities in Miami-Dade County to open an F&B spot, to open a restaurant for whatever reason, whether it's the, you know, corruption, dysfunction, slow walking, the process, too many steps in the process? I think it's literally all of Miami-Dade. I think it's Miami and Miami Beach mostly.

That's really the, you know, city of Coral Gables and you know, city of Aventura, city of Sunny Isles, they kind of have their own municipalities, things work different. But when it comes back to the Grease Trap and what Miami has for the code, you still have to wait the same exact time. So you have restaurants signing leases thinking they're going to open in the next six months.

Two years later, they're still paying rent and they can't open. So right out the gate, you know, the money that they had picked out for furniture, for good purveyors, for marketing, for supplies. Now that's cut down. I mean, we know restaurants that there's one actually that I could think of right now, Sunset Harbor, they put $1.7 million into their space, they're never going to open. What? Yeah, they get the they do a deal with the landlord. The landlord gives them six months, a year and a half later, they're paying $25,000, $30,000 a month in rent. At a certain period of time, their investors are going to pull the cord, you know, because they can't just keep dumping money into a project that they don't know when it's going

to open. But then what are the landlords do? They take the keys back gladly, They got a brand new built out space and they'll charge $120, $125 a foot. When you're coming off of these, as you put it, the worst art battle for restaurants in five years. This amazing article from journalist Eric Barton

for Air Mail, Graydon Carter's post-vanity fair project. The title is The New Swampland, says since 2020, branches of restaurants from New York, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, and elsewhere have opened in Miami, but the bubble may be ready to pop. The headline, The New Swampland, of course, kind of compares restaurants in Miami to the modern day version of unsuspecting people

who came to Florida a century ago and bought Swampland that was marketed as great real estate to build homes and businesses and things. My favorite quote is from Franco Yanele, an Argentinian restaurant owner who moved to Miami in the height of the lockdown of the COVID pandemic. Quote, a lot of people told me, beware, it's really tough to get construction done in this city. And I thought, I'm from a third world country. What could

be worse than that? As the author wrote, what Yeneli found was a city that lived up to its notorious reputation. You of course are, as far as I'm concerned, responsible for this article because you're not only quoted in it, but it's like, it kind of borrows your thesis and exports it on an international platform. I want to know where some of the biggest pushback has come for you. We talked about a little bit at the beginning, but I know it's hard in this town to tell the truth, especially if you're a realtor, you know, you're in the facade business. You are in the

fake it till you make it or fake it till you don't make it industry. So what has been some of the harshest criticism that you've received and has it been because you're lying or is it because you're telling the truth? There definitely hasn't been good. I've gotten a lot of support from the community and you know what, at the end of the day, that's really who I care about. You know, I don't care about developers or landlords

or yes, it's gonna hurt me financially, but I think that a lot of them are afraid that, you know what, I'm okay financially, so whatever happens, they can't really hurt me, and I think that's really, or by me, that's really what they're most scared of right now, is that I can go out and tell the truth, and I'm not gonna get fired, nobody's gonna do shit,

so it is what it is. I don't know that I care so much about the Northeasterners, these carpetbaggers who come down here and spend a bunch of money and wind up getting screwed. I mean, I care about the local entrepreneurs and the people who wanna build local businesses so that they can create jobs and opportunity for their families and other locals.

But those seem to be the people that are suffering the most, is that right? That is 100% right. And for me, those are actually the people I try to protect. So even though I've cost myself and I get criticized by a lot of brokers and agents, the fact that like, why are you doing it? Like, why are you even doing this for a living

if you're just gonna keep talking people out of deals? Because the way I believe that, you know, A, it's always better to be a good person. And B, it's about educating the community for them not to make mistakes of spending every hard earned dollar they've raised or, you know, gotten in through, you know, for investment to open their dream and they're never going to open. So, unfortunately, I've seen too much of that and I'm just sick

and tired of it. Felix, I understand this isn't just entrepreneurs who are trying to open restaurants, but people who are trying to take advantage of the visa program here in the United States that are disrupting this market in not a good way. Well, we went through the one thing which was the market over cannibalizing itself, the fact that Miami is not a 12 month a year city, but a lot of the what's going, and the grease trap,

but a lot of what's going on is actually the investor visa, investors that are coming in and that's what's driving up the cost on the local operators because those guys are willing to pay top market rent. So all you need is one comp from those guys and everybody else's rent doubles, triples, quadruples when their market price comes up. So let me ask you about that.

So this is a hustle that is not really related to the restaurant business, right? How does this work? So there's obviously Miami is a very investor visa friendly city. So they have a lot of representatives or consulting agencies from countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia.

And what they do is they buy businesses, restaurants are probably the easiest and they put in all their own people. They have to use these consulting companies, contractors and interior designers and lawyers and they may or may not still open. But what they do is they wind up paying a premium price because they don't have financials in the United States. So they'll just pay a higher rent and put more of a higher deposit.

And what a lot of landlords will do is they'll take that one comp and then raise the rent on everybody else around them because that's all they need is one market comp that a restaurant is paying you X. So they, you know, all the developers will raise the prices on the rent. So they could, you know, all the developers will raise the prices on the rent. So that's where the problem comes in.

So not unlike what we've seen with the housing market as well, the sort of foreign and cash investment from people who may not even be living in these in these homes, but are rather investing in them, raising the value or raising the prices, I should say, of all of the surrounding homes in the market. It's that same idea? That's 100% right, and that's, I think, where we're getting the most amount of pushback from developers, you know, of getting cease and desists

from owners and landlords for telling the truth. Cease and desist telling the truth. you know. Ceasing to tell the truth. Yeah, for ruining their narrative. Well, all you're doing though is talking about the numbers in your own business, right? That's all these are just data points that you have from your own experience. Right, and what hurt them even more is if I actually,

now I would never put a restaurant that's closing on blast ever until they make it public. But if I ever was forced to show the numbers Now, I would never put a restaurant that's closing on blast ever until they make it public. But if I ever was forced to show the numbers of the restaurants actually closing or are interested in selling their business, I think people would be a lot more worried. Last thing so we're clear though,

what is this visa hustle though? How do the visas come into play? So visa hustle comes in, these guys, if you've noticed, especially over the last couple of years, all the mediocre restaurants that have been opening, maybe they have an Italian sounding name, but they don't serve Italian food. And what they do is they'll buy 51% of an existing business, show that they have employees, show that they have an actual business.

They get their visa and they put their cousin in the kitchen, wait for the place to fall apart. And then the landlord takes it back and then the new guy comes in and who will have to pay the $130, $200 a foot that the landlord is now asking for. So they have no interest in the actual restaurant business. And that's what really pisses me off.

I love this town! Felix Menderski, founder of F&B Hospitality Brokerage, find him on Instagram at F&B Miami. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks. Thanks, brother. Backstreet's back, all right. Since the dawn of mankind, Thanks brother. style or just celebrate Wednesday with burgers and dogs. I love Miller Lite. Every single time my team plays on television, I am sitting behind that television screen with a Miller Lite R3.

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Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories per 12 ounces. Hoo! Woo! It happened during the summer of protest 96 calories per 12 ounces. Whoo. It happened during the summer of protest in the Black Lives Matter movement, May 31st, 2020. During a demonstration in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Latoya Ratliff was

shot in the face with a rubber bullet. Officers targeted demonstrators who were peacefully protesting after the killing of George Floyd. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department has since acknowledged that Ratliff did nothing wrong and was a victim. She has filed a federal lawsuit saying her civil rights were violated. He was not acting in self-defense. He was not acting in the defense of others. He was using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of peaceful demonstrators without any warning.

Latoya Ratliff is the great niece of famed civil and women's rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. She was attending this peaceful protest in downtown Fort Lauderdale in what was a summer of protests throughout the country after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. What happened at this particular event was that an officer by the name of Stylianne Hayes, she radioed in that she was in some form of distress, that her unmarked vehicle was being surrounded, that there were protesters who were jumping and stomping on top of the vehicle, that she was frightened and trapped. And as a result, without warning, effectively a SWAT team, a militia of Fort Lauderdale

police officers show up, begin firing tear gas and indiscriminately firing rubber bullets into the smoke, into the crowd. This video of officers battering peaceful protesters who were kneeling on their knees on the ground with their hands in the air. It turns out as a result of this lawsuit that Latoya has filed and in a new report in the Miami Herald by Sarah Blaski, it says a deposition taken under oath the officer who made the initial distress call admitted she never actually saw anyone damaging her vehicle or jumping on the trunk as described in not only her incident report but her radio call

this frantic radio call and a forensic analysis of synchronized video and audio from the scene shows no evidence that protesters were surrounding the vehicle as the officer reported while she radioed for backup. Send me a few more units please. We're starting to surround my car. Alright, on one avenue? Yes, I need to know where you're at. Are you on one avenue? Where are you on one avenue? 2-3, I'm completely surrounded.

Alright. Move. Alright. Jump on my car, send me units. Alright, make it out to 2th Street. You're in route. We're all coming on each other. Alright, 10-4.

Where is she at on 2th Street, so we know? She has to go to the garage. She has to go to the garage. She has to go to the garage. I can call her, but I'm just saying, I'll call her first. I'm coming out in a few seconds. In the chaos that ensued as a result of that false report by Officer Hayes, Latoya Ratliff was shot in the face with a rubber bullet fracturing her eye socket and causing some ongoing, if not permanent, health concerns and damage. Latoya is with us now.

Well, Latoya, first off, I know it's been a number of years, but how are you feeling? It's a, that's kind of tough. I kind of feel like I live in like this kind of perpetual state of like, I don't have closure. I don't really have an answer. And the more I find out, the more I realize

that what happened to me was just completely unjustified. So I don't know, I kind of take it day by day. It's frustrating. Yeah, I don't really know. It's a process, honestly. And it feels like there has been sort of mounting injustices. I mean, right out of the gate here it seemed pretty obvious

from the video and photographs that we have. This was a very well covered event by the press, by the protesters themselves who were live streaming a lot of this. This was pretty tame and quiet until the police showed up and started firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. It was only then that I think the protesters kind of reacted, throwing water bottles or things like that. But immediately, then police chief Rick Maglione, the Fort Lauderdale mayor, Dean Trantalis, started lying immediately in a cover-up and perpetuating what we now know unequivocally to be a lie

because the police officer has now said under oath that she lied, but I feel like we've known this the entire time, so is there any sense of vindication yet here that now that the police officer was forced to admit under oath that she completely fabricated what eventually became the justification for this, well, for this use of force against you and your fellow protesters.

Indication is such a tough word simply because like, you know, this is going to be four years that this happened as of Thursday and I still don't have answers. I'm still struggling with what happened. There are still people that were impacted that that were tear gassed as well, that were shot at rubber bullets because there's a host of videos of other officers celebrating after actually shooting indiscriminately at protesters. And there isn't any resolution at this point. And for it to have waited for four years for this information to be revealed, for the police

to be aware of this information, specifically Maglione was aware of, you had to be revealed for the police to be aware of this information. Um, specifically Maglione was aware of, you had to be aware of this information because this video was readily available to you. And now, you know, how many years have passed? So there are people that were hurt, but maybe they weren't hurt like me that have been sitting at home thinking that what happened to them was justified. So vindication in a way is, is it doesn't happen until there's actual accountability that's made from the, because of what the police did. Like that's when that comes,

that's when I feel vindicated. That's when I feel like, okay, something can come out of this. But for now we're still kind of in limbo because there are still so many people who are out there that were tear gassed, that their rights were violated, that don't have a voice and that don't even know that they are able to pursue damages and pursue justice for what happened to them. This officer who in a deposition in your civil case has admitted to, effectively admitted to lying, Sileani or Sileani Hayes,

I'm not entirely certain how to pronounce her name. Did she explain why she fabricated this claim? Because in my view there could really only be two reasons here either. She was manufacturing a justification for the use of force Which you can see clearly from the video is totally unnecessary and out of control based on the facts on the ground Or she was hallucinating. Maybe she was medicated. I don't want to speculate, but she seemed to see things and hear things and experience things

that simply did not exist and did not occur. That's a good question. I can't really speak to her mental state and what kind of drew her to those conclusions and to make that call, but there's something is important to point out. It's like you mentioned the actual police report or the report that she made after what happened.

And in the report, she described the protest as a riot from the get go that she was there to monitor the riot, that she was there to actively move people and create a safe environment for riot. And when you think about the language like that and what that means when you say riot versus a demonstration versus a protest, it can potentially speak to the state of mind of what this police officer felt when she was coming out to that event, what she viewed people that were attending that event.

And throughout the report, subsequently, people are listed as protesters and as rioters. That's a very, very different terminology. And to use that interchangeably, that can speak to her state and what she actually viewed us as. Well, in my opinion, her state is full of shit. That's my view in both reading her report and obviously looking at the objective evidence that we have. And speaking of objective evidence, as I referenced earlier, there's been this kind of series of injustices or compounding injustice since that day four years ago. The officer, Detective Eliezer Ramos, who had fired that rubber bullet into your eye, he was cleared by Internal Affairs,

by an initial investigator, in fact, who told you, I think, in a meeting that he was a cool guy and he must, it must have been an accident. Is that how this internal affairs investigation began, really? Yeah, that was a moment that is quite unforgettable. I mean, as many moments throughout this situation have been that the internal affairs officer basically said he was a good guy.

And that was a moment for me, which, to pretend like I didn't, I went into this situation and went into the internal affairs investigation, truly believing that there was going to be this chance of accountability and acknowledgement of what happened to me. I would be in this living in an insane world if I felt that. But giving an opportunity for them to do what was right. That moment just kind of solidified for me that this wasn't going to be an easy situation and that the Fort Lauderdale police weren't willing to actually

be accountable and have transparency and be honest about what happened because you don't get to decide because you know someone that when they do something that's wrong, when they clearly do something that violated my rights and actually hurt me that, oh, he's a good guy. He didn't mean to do something. You don't know. You don't know what his intentions were. I don't know what his intentions were,

but I know what happened. I know what I saw. And now as more information come out, I know that there wasn't even a justification for the way they respond to us to begin with. Yeah, I would take that into a court of law. Oh yeah, my client's a good guy. Innocent.

And this is day one, Roy. I mean, this is, they're calling Latoya in to interview her. And the guy who is charged with investigating this and getting to the bottom of this and finding out what actually occurred and what the intentions are, are telling you, oh, it's probably nothing. He didn't, I mean, and I believe that investigator was removed from the investigation. That didn't stop him, the officer Eliezer Ramos, from being cleared of not doing anything wrong here in this case.

But also there was another officer, the only officer so far charged in anything related to what happened that day. And it wasn't even what happened to Latoya. Steven Poherance faced a misdemeanor charge because he shoved a 19-year-old woman, Jada Severance, who was literally, you see her on her knees with her hands in the air Doing nothing not moving he shubs her for no reason at all other than he looks to me like some sort of rabid animal Out of control if you watch that video footage, and he was acquitted by a jury Roy But here's what we learned about him. He had been cleared by internal affairs prior to this incident for using force 79 times in just three and a half years on the force. He had

drawn his firearm more than once a month on average since he was hired in October of 2016 when this happened in 2020. Major red flags at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department ignored and the police chief at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department ignored. And the police chief at the time, Maglione, who had since been reassigned, not fired, but reassigned, he admitted that he covered up for bad cops in use of force investigations

by only reviewing written police reports in which officers routinely lie and never watching body cam video. When they had body cam video, he never bothered watching it. He just trusted these police reports, which we know now from both the police report and the body cam footage of this officer, Hayes, were just fucking lies. Sorry, Roy, I had to drop an F-bomb there.

Come on, man, you could have just said it was bullshit and called it a day. I already called it bullshit. I needed to like, I needed to drop an F-bomb there. Come on, man, you could have just said it was bullshit and called it a game. I already called it bullshit. I needed to double down, also magnify my profanity. Latoya, I want to give you the last word here. Has anyone from the city, the lying mayor, Dean Trentalis, the lying police chief, ex-police chief Rick Maglione,

I don't know about who the new police chief is. I know there was an interim police chief for a minute. Has anybody apologized to you? They've acknowledged that you did nothing wrong. This was unjustifiable in every conceivable way, even when they thought that this lying cop Hayes legitimately witnessed some sort of unrest on her car. But has anybody from Fort Lauderdale reached out to you to apologize for the injury and injustice that was done to you? So apparently Mayor John Salas said that he called me. I don't have record of that call. I do have record of him saying multiple times that I shouldn't have been out there. The only individual that actually reached out to me that I sat down

and I spoke with, I mean, eventually we had a meeting with the city. There wasn't an apology during that meeting, but the only individual that actually apologized and actually acknowledged what happened to me was wrong is Vince Lawrence. And he's the only person that really reached out to me and acknowledged that any of this shouldn't have happened.

Other than that, I haven't heard from anyone else. And I doubt that I will ever. Trent Alice, I believe is Greek for liar. So if he said he called, I don't know that I would necessarily believe that. Probably spam. Probably, sure. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

Like here's the thing, Roy. Like I know that there's such a thing as a justifiable use of force. I even know that there's such a thing perhaps as a justifiable use of force. I even know that there's such a thing perhaps as a justifiable use of deadly force, okay? But when you're dealing with police unions and politicians and police chiefs who have never seen an unjustifiable use of force,

that is disingenuous and frightening. And here we've seen what is clearly, and what the city itself has already acknowledged, is an unjustifiable use of force. And now all the evidence is that any justification for it was based on an outright lie from a police officer in both a radio call and a report where she was basically falsely reporting that she was in some kind of danger when she was in fact not. And no action has been taken, Roy. I don't see that this officer is under any kind of internal affairs investigation or has been

suspended for this lie that resulted in the injury of innocent people and peaceful protesters. Protest is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. The press is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. I want you to search that document up, down, left, right, and sideways, Roy. You will never see the word police there. So how we have this class of people who have rights above and beyond the rest of us and above and beyond what is called for in the Constitution based on what I am not certain, I mean this is dangerous. People out there, so-called conservatives who believe in small government Who are concerned about the tyranny of their government who fly don't tread on me flags

There is no greater treading on you than firing a rubber bullet into the face of a peaceful Protester on the streets of the United States of America Latoya if they don't I will apologize To you for what happened to you. I wish you good physical health. I wish you good mental health. I can only imagine. I'm sorry we showed that clip earlier, which must be traumatic for you, but I think it's important for people to see and hear what it is that went on out there through no fault of your own. And thank you for being here and I wish you good luck in the litigation. Thank you so much. And if I could just say one more thing, I do hope that anyone that sees this

podcast, that sees a report on Miami Hero that you recognize now that what happened to you wasn't right and it wasn't justified and that you have an ability to seek justice as well. We are this close to crowning an NBA champ and with the action heating up on the court, it's even hotter at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. New to DraftKings? Listen up. New customers can get a no-sweat bet up to $1,500.

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issued as one bonus bet based on amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng.co slash bball for eligibility, wagering, deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gaming resources. ["The Will of Fortune Theme Song"] It's time once again for the Because Miami Wheel of Despair. I feel like Streeter needs to do like a theme song or something for it, no?

Yeah, that's a good idea. Theme song, The Will of Fortune. John Dewey! I don't know why that would be. I don't even know why you even played that card. I don't know why that would be the theme song, The Wheel of Fortune. John Dewey! I don't know why that would be. I don't even know why you played that card. I don't know why that would be the theme song, but We have biometric technology. Roy, what is on the wheel this week?

Okay. I got it. Proof that I have a list for you. Um. The no shit report. Wait a second, Roy. it looks like there's some highlighted on that list I use the back of a paper that oh I okay interview prep for Chris Winningham who is rooting for the New York Rangers I I was I thought

that that meant that maybe these things these topics are pre-selected or rigged in some way so no no no no no that would be the other side. The other side, okay, all right. That shows that, okay. Roy, what are the topics on the deal? The no shit reports. Hell yeah. We'll get to that eventually. So a holdover from last week's wheel?

Yeah, yeah, a lot of holdovers. Cocaine, Viscain, as Viscain would be. V, yeah, the Viscain Tower condo, yeah. Couple blocks from here, yeah. Yeah. Tricky Vicky, who is a big fan of yours. It's my girl. Your girl.

Your girl or my girl. How dare you, sir. And Soulcrushing Commutes. So we shall spin this thing and see what it lands on. You know, it's already pre-determined. Soulcrushing Commutes. hands on. Soul crushing commute. That is the headline, the Miami New Times this week. Miami's soul crushing daily commute has gotten worse study fines. Roy, how many days per year do you think that Miami commuters spend in traffic? All of them. All of them?

Well, yes, that is a very good point actually. I guess my question is the totality of traffic time from the course of the year. Over the course of a year, I would say maybe nine days. Oh wow, if this is Price is Right rules, you are closest without going over. I would say one day, Bob, just to be careful. But it is in fact 236.86 hours or approximately 10 full days. I'm a winner.

So the typical daily commute in Miami is 58 minutes. That puts us within the top 25 for cities with the largest 10-year increase in commute times. Ohio's average daily commute is about 57.4 minutes, which is three spots below Miami. So 10 full days a year, Miamians spend sitting in traffic and that's just commuting to work by the way That's not you know, wherever the hell else you're going sitting in traffic. So over ten days a year Wow, can you imagine? Having to do that ten days a year out of your life and having to listen to this podcast while you're doing it

No, no, actually, I absolutely cannot and that is because I cannot sanction your bifurtery. Spin the wheel Roy. It landed on cocaine viscane. So the viscane, there's some luxury condo towers. They are what two or three blocks away from where we are right now. Just due south. And so what happened a couple days ago Roy, gunshots. They started flying through the windows on the 44th and 45th floor striking and shattering hurricane impact glass. One bullet landed inches away, it hit the window, inches away from a high chair. Fortunately the kids were playing in another room of the house but these were occupied dwellings

getting hit with bullets. The police don't know what the hell happened. What they do think is that there was a shooter in another neighboring high-rise tower to the south that was firing, perhaps not targeting anybody over there, but just firing. I think that's pretty innovative though from a Grand Theft Auto perspective. I don't recall any like high-rise to high-rise shootouts, but I think that's pretty incredible. Here's some really disturbing video and audio.

Wait till you hear the first thing this woman says at the top. I just moved from Chicago to get away from the crime and violence. And like five minutes ago, I hear repetitive gunshots. Peace of mind shattered. Legitimately, this is scariest. For the residents of Viscane luxury apartments

South tower in downtown Miami. I could hear the gunshots after Miami police say shots were fired into occupied apartments just after seven in the evening on Sunday. Some bullets into kitchen and living room windows and no one knows where they came from. I'm pretty sure it's on the carpet Can there's some pieces up here to Vivian all oden arrived home to a kitchen crime scene She lives on the 45th floor and shared these photos of her shattered windows directly next to her baby's high chair She posted this video on Instagram saying a shooter in downtown Miami put a bullet in my window Scattering hurricane impact glass onto my baby's high chair. Luckily her kids were playing in another room. She finished the video by saying Miami what kind of city do we want to be? Okay so she moved from Chicago to Miami to

avoid crime. Yes and then moved to downtown Miami and is now caught on the 44th floor of her condo in a shootout. This building is becoming more and more like the Clevelander every day. You feel like you're back on Ocean Drive, huh Roy? Yes, we're back baby. I miss Ocean Drive. I really, I'm the one, I'm the only one. Shall we spin the wheel the wheel again right should we

It's a girl tricky Vicky Hey right you remember that time when when she had that meltdown at the City Commission meeting and she said you are a vile Little man, how could I forget so I got a whole t- man. How could I forget? So I got a whole t-shirt about it and everything. Yeah. So I filed a bar. You remind me every day. Wait do I remind you every day that I made a t-shirt or that I'm a vile little man? That you made a t-shirt. Okay so it's my profile picture I think. When actually I think when I call you it pops up with me with that exactly so I filed a bar complaint against her for her violating rules with respect to decorum professional behavior etc and she responded to that complaint and her response was basically I did it and I'm not sorry. Don't you know who I am and the First Amendment?

That was her response. Okay The last one yeah set aside You don't want to repeat that right? No, she said that while in session Mind you talking about the chrome calling you a vile little man, and she's not denying it No, I mean how can she there's video evidence of it and she's not sorry for it. And she also, she's basically like, don't you know who I am? I'm like super important. I am the disgraced fired Miami city attorney slash mob lawyer, Tricky Vicky Mendez. And then she shits all over the first amendment and the ability not only of the people to

come to public comment and speak truth to power and confront peacefully their government and criticize it. But also one of the most fundamental rights that we have as journalists, which is to parody and satire our government, political cartoons. And she talks about how like we Photoshopped her face onto Ursula, the villainous from Little Mermaid, that poor unfortunate soul, Tricky Vicky.

But she criticizes, as I said, some of the most fundamental rights that we have to make fun of our government, to use cartoons and parody and satire to tell the truth about what's really happening, and she hates it. She thinks that she, as the second highest paid public official in the city of Miami, I hear one of the, if not the highest paid city attorneys in the entire state of Florida,

as a public official, that she somehow, she is beyond reproach, she is above any kind of criticism, or any kind of truth. It's an incredibly disturbing thing, and if you're a lawyer who's desperately searching for a new job, it's like a self-destructive thing to write. Like something is deranged that prospective employers could read that she wrote. So I wrote back my own rebuttal to that response. And you know what's happened, Roy? What's that, Billy? The complaint has been escalated into a full investigation and most complaints die in Tallahassee,

and only about one out of three complaints advance to this stage, and it has advanced. So they opened up an investigation. All they have to do is watch a video. We live to fight another day and to see where all of this goes. And in the meantime, Roy? You are a vile little man. And they can also listen and watch this show because you have the clip in question.

Hashtag BLM, hashtag vile lives matter. Roy, it was a hell of a week at Miami City Hall, as it always is. How can I help? And I will tell you, Joe Carollo and the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day at Miami City Hall. That is what Alain Devalle at politicalcortadito.com called last week's commission meeting because everything and everything that could go wrong for poor Commissioner Crazy Joe, AKA... He's a white beaver, white beaver Yeah, that's Joe Caroneo

What I have is very small. So everything went wrong for poor Joe and I went to speak in public comment both of the issues that I spoke about passed 4 to 1 and I will tell you he got called out by the public, he got called out by his fellow commissioners, he lost multiple votes, four to one, on issues that were very important to him. He seemed tired, disoriented, defeated, and it really is starting to look like his 40 plus year reign of terror is finally coming to an end. Knock wood. And I gotta tell you the truth, Roy, it was almost sad watching this once proud gladiator

pathetically wobbling on his last legs. And some of those highlights, Roy, you see how sad, almost was the key word there. It's almost. You look very despondent. It was almost, almost sad. This is not your little Twitter account, little Billy. Any bad day for Joe Carollo is a great day

for the people of the city of Miami. And our Miami moment is a montage of some of the great, great events, great moments that happened last week in Miami City Hall. Go Panthers and Cocaine's. I'd like everyone here who's in favor of stopping the LED billboards to please stand and be recognized. For the records between 25 to 30 people. Commissioner Correale, I remember you when you were mayor and when you were a commissioner before and you were nice and I'm surprised

You should be embarrassed that instead of listening to your residents. You're mocking them. You're not up there to speak You're here to you're up there to listen. You shouldn't be mocking your residents. You should be embarrassed about that That's a motion for PC7. Do I have a second? Motion fails for lack of second wait, I'm here You have a second. Motion fails for lack of second. Madam Chair, call the question. Let's call the question. We've been over this, I'm tired of this. Let's call the question. I'm not for the dog and pony. Let's call the question.

We're wasting time. We had an agreement. That's why we had the same With all due respect. I'm out of order but I'm getting tired of this. You have to allow your colleague to speak. I understand. He talks a lot and then we forget. With all due respect. I have a motion in the second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Motion passes 401 with Commissioner Crowe avoiding no.

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