Carlos Miller is suing to fight a Jacksonville judge’s restrictive media definition. Courtesy of Carlos Miller

For the past eight years, Carlos Miller has operated the Miami-based website Photography is Not a Crime (PINAC), a nationally-known free speech and media advocacy blog with roughly a million visitors a month. But recently a Jacksonville judge ruled the organization couldn’t film the trial of its own correspondent because the site doesn’t fit the court’s definition of a media organization.

Now PINAC is fighting back by filing a lawsuit to get the right to film in courtrooms.

“The laws are very clear,” Miller tells New Times. “But now, in this case, the judge does not want us to record…because they don’t like our organization.”

The case revolves around the trial of Michale Hoffman, a reporter for PINAC who is being charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, for holding signs outside a local airport.

At Hoffman’s first hearing last October, another PINAC reporter requested to film the court proceedings and was allowed. But for a subsequent court date, Miller says, the court threw in a hurdle, forcing PINAC to apply for media credentials, then repeatedly denying its application.

In March, Judge Mark Mahon finally issued an order outlining a narrow definition of what constitutes media: traditional print and broadcast organizations that “reach or influence people widely”; and digital media that posts original news, has an editor review all stories, and can prove it has regular online visitors.

All kinds of blogs, or citizen journalists, would be effectively excluded, especially PINAC — even though the website’s viewership numbers roughly compare with those of the top news sites in Jacksonville, where the trial is taking place, Miller says. Throughout the process, Miller says, PINAC has repeatedly tried to comply with the requirements, but the judge keeps “moving the goal post” — adding in restrictions like a nonsensical mandate that to be authorized to cover the judicial system an organization has to have already covered the judicial system for six months. “He’s just trying to put all kinds of obstacles in front of us,” Miller says.

But Miller is confident the law is actually on his side. In Florida, he says, in order to bar the filming of a trial the court in effect has to prove there’s a good reason for a camera not to be present, which usually is that it compromises a fair trial for the defendant. But in this case the party seeking to film is also the defendant, so the argument is ridiculous. And the judge’s restrictive media definition, Miller contends, will also ultimately be swiftly thrown out.

“The First Amendment says there’s freedom of the press,” Miller says. “It doesn’t say, ‘there’s freedom of the press if you run a newspaper.'”

Fireworks and ravers at Bayfront Park during Ultra Music Festival. Photo by George Martinez/gmartnx.com

Bayfront Park is polluted. There is lead, arsenic, and other toxins in the soil. This contamination was actually discovered during last year’s survey of the City of Miami’s 112 public parks, which followed the discovery of poison ash in Coconut Grove at the former site of the Old Smokey municipal trash incinerator, since used as a training center for the fire-rescue department. But now, finally, the cleanup is being planned.

Opened in 1925, Bayfront was created by filling a 62.5-acre piece of land with mud pumped up from the bottom of Biscayne Bay. This is perhaps how the tainted dirt ended up at park. However, it had been previously used as a shipyard by the Florida East Coast Railway for years. And there was also a landscaping redesign in the 1980s that could have brought toxic soil to downtown Miami’s most prominent green space. But at no time in the 20th century was the earth tested, and city officials have no idea how it became polluted.

Of course, Bayfront, now 32 acres, is only one of Miami’s so-called “poison parks.” As the city has surveyed its green spaces, lead-, arsenic-, and barium-laced toxic ash from Old Smokey and other toxins have been found in the dirt of many other parks, including Blanche Park and Merrie Christmas Park, as well as Douglas, Curtis, Southside, Brothers to the Rescue, and Billy Rolle Domino parks. Even the former Bicentennial Park, now the location of the Pérez Art Museum Miami and once the site of Port Miami docks, was discovered to be contaminated in 2010.

So far, cleanup of Miami’s parks has cost millions of dollars. And money is predictably the major point of contention in the current negotiations between Miami-Dade County environmental regulators, the City of Miami, and the Bayfront Park Management Trust over how — and even whether — to remove Bayfront’s lead- and arsenic-tainted soil.

The Bayfront Park Management Trust makes much of its yearly revenue from Ultra Music Festival. Photo by George Martinez/gmartnx.com

At a meeting this week of city officials and the trust, the Miami Herald reports, the price of cleaning up Bayfront (as estimated by consultants from SCS Engineers) was said to be several hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million. The most expensive method would be total removal of the tainted dirt. This sort of approach took 18 months and $1.2 million at Merrie Christmas Park in Coconut Grove.

The Bayfront Park Management Trust, the controlling agency responsible for all Bayfront-related business, insists it has neither the funds, nor the time for a pricey and lengthy cleanup. The trust is also perturbed about paying the bill on its own without contributions from the city.

“The whole issue has been moving along extremely slowly,” trust chairman and Miami city commissioner Frank Carollo said, according to the Herald. “The only city park that the city has not been paying for any of the work, and where there is no plan for the remediation, is Bayfront Park. This is expensive, especially for an organization that doesn’t receive any money from the city of Miami.”

Certain trust board members, including Carollo, even suggested the removal of the toxic soil is unnecessary, because the pollution is low enough to not actually pose a public health risk.

As quoted by the Herald, trust member Nathan Kurland said: “You would have to literally ingest the dirt to get sick. I want the park to be a safe place for people to be. But we’d like to see some kind of sanity involved in this.”

(Found in lower concentrations than at other Miami parks, based on the results of city tests, Bayfront’s lead and arsenic is present in soil along Biscayne Boulevard between NE First and Second streets, an area that’s currently restricted and cordoned off.)

Still, despite the trust’s objections and the seemingly less dangerous levels of contamination at Bayfront, city officials insisted on a cleanup and threatened to close the park, just as the since-reopened Merrie Christmas was shut down, if the trust refused to cooperate.

In the end, Carollo, Kurland, and the other dissenting trust members relented, voting to contract consultants for a cleanup plan. The fee for those services will be $100,000.

Another, probably more serious cost concern for the Bayfront Park Management Trust is the potential loss of funds generated over the coming year from leasing the park to event organizers.

The Bayfront Park Amphitheater was just recently rebooted by Live Nation, which announced an ambitious spring/summer schedule featuring eight major concerts by acts like Nicki Minaj, Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson, and the Culture Club. But it seems unlikely that any cleanup would interfere with these live-music shows, because the polluted patch of dirt is all the way on the other side of the park.

However, with 11 months till Ultra 2016, the trust’s most lucrative weekend of the year may be at risk. And that’s why, as board members even admitted to the Herald, they really can’t afford an 18-month cleanup.

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From Herring’s Raku demonstration during the Innovation and Engineering Weekend at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. Courtesy of James Herring/World Red Eye

Miami has no shortage of artists and creative types. While there are a lot of homegrown talents living and working here, there is also a large community of transplants looking to evolve artistically in this newish mecca for the arts. With many high-profile events and institutions taking place and hold within this community, it’s easy to lose focus on the nurturing aspects of the arts and the basic elements of creation. “Makerspaces” anyone?

“What we are trying to do here with this collaboration between Miami Industrial Arts and MADE at The Citadel, is nurture creative thinking,” explains master potter James Herring. “These two groups are formed to bring together artists, designers, engineers, craft practitioners, programmers, and makers of every level from amateur to professional in an environment that will foster collaboration, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Herring, the exhibition manager at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, is a well-known practitioner and advocate for pottery. As a man who has worked artistically and professionally with his hands, he understands the necessity for a makerspace in Miami.

A makerspace is an easy solution for those, amateur and professionals alike, who are looking to get back to basics, but can’t afford the tools and hardware that creation necessitates.

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James Herring at the wheel during the Innovation and Engineering Weekend at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. Courtesy of James Herring/World Red Eye

“Experiencing the joy of creating is clearly as fundamental to being human as is eating and sleeping,” says Miami Industrial Arts (MIA) founder Paul Thomas. “All across the United States, a revival of the maker identity is taking place. [..]Makerspaces are public workshops, where you can have access to tools and machinery, as well as the knowledge and skills to fuel your learning and creativity.”

MIA is the first makerspace in South Florida and as such is leading this charge with its 6,000 square feet warehouse housing a fully equipped wood shop, metalworking tools, ceramics area and instructional space for workshops and demonstrations.

What makes a makerspace unique and an attractive option is the ready-made infrastructure that it provides. With membership packages ranging on a dependence on time commitment, MIA offers a great yearlong membership for $110 a month with prices increasing to $150 per month depending on monthly commitment. Even at $150 for a month, the access to tools in a rent-free space is a mere pittance.

MIA’s goal to provide the community a fully operational and funded makerspace can only occur through membership fees and fundraisers. Many in the community have already come aboard and made donations, like Swampspace’s Oliver Sanchez who donated woodturning chisels, and MADE at the Citadel who have joined in creating a Raku evening benefitting the fledgling ceramics studio within MIA.

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From Herring’s Raku demonstration during the Innovation and Engineering Weekend at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. Courtesy of James Herring/World Red Eye

“This Raku night is a way to introduce people to ‘learning through making,’” says Herring. “Raku is a traditional Japanese glazing and firing technique first devised in the 16 century to satisfy the needs of the tea masters to the Shogun who was the de facto leader of that nation. The Japanese Tea Ceremony was designed to focus the attention of the participants on the beauty of everyday objects and to remove class distinctions.”

The  Raku lead event will help fund the ceramics department.There will be ready-made pots for purchase at $15 (or two for $25) that will be glazed, raku-ed and ready to take home that night.

As introduction to the benefits of a makerspace in a community, I’m hard-pressed in thinking of a better one that marries artistry and neighborhood empowerment with the grace of the collaborative spirit; ensuring Miami’s continued vitality as a nest and destination for creative types at any skill level.

Herring puts it best into perspective, “this is a way of bringing people to the space, to raise some funds for the ceramics program and maybe have someone walk away with an object they actually helped create. Often people just need something to get them past the idea that they are incapable of making anything.”

Raku Night at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 1, at Miami Industrial Arts, 300 NW 73rd St., Miami. Call 305-772-5043.

If ever you’ve wanted a sketch of yourself that wasn’t an outrageous caricature, or even wanted to try your hand at sketching, now is your chance. Sketchy Miami is having alaunch party at Lester’s this Thursday.

Sketchy Miami features portraits, or sketchys as they call them, of people from all over the Magic City. It’s a project by the folks at BeachedMiami with the mission statement” “The goal of Sketchy Miami is simple and impossible: to create a portrait of every person in Miami.”

Residents submit their photos to the blog, which artists then turn into portraits. And by “artist,” they mean anyone who wants to participate.

Laura of Miami by Nicolette Sketchy Miami

“The relationship between portraitist and portrait subject is one of the

strongest in the history of art, and we want to facilitate that

relationship between as many Miamians as possible,” said Robby Campbell,

who runs Sketchy Miami. “Portraiture is traditionally a stuffy genre, but, as you can see on the site, it doesn’t have to be.”

Tony Dandrades by Nadyia Duff Sketchy Miami

To submit a photo of yourself, or a sketch of someone else, just click on the corresponding tab at the top of the site and enter your information along with the image. The sketchys are then featured on the blog for everyone to see.  They would like to eventually exhibit the sketchys offline, but have no concrete plans at the moment.

The upcoming party will feature local artists ready to do quick portraits of guests, “particularly those with handsome moustaches and/or adorable ears,” says Campbell. Artists include Ximena Prugue, Elizannette Blanco, Brian Butler, Annie Blazejack, and Carrie Sieh.
Lester’s is discounting beer 25 percent for the first hour, and Joey’s is

serving up free pizza. And in keeping with the local theme, Miami-born

singer Sam Friend will perform.

Leah Weston by Ximena Prugue Sketchy Miami

“This is not a curated

project and we aren’t trying — and don’t expect — to get a thousand

Mona Lisas. We’d prefer to get a million different Sketchys that show

how creative and diverse a city Miami really is,” said Campbell.

Attend a Sketchy Party, presented by BeachedMiami, this Thursday at Lester’s (2519 NW Second Ave., Miami). The party begins at 8 p.m. and is free.

Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami.

The “blowjob shots” were just beginning. It was after 3 a.m., and Shots Miami was living up to its name. Hundreds of customers sucked down slugs of brightly colored booze — some from between each other’s legs. All night long, partiers had flocked to the neon-painted bar on NW 23rd Street to don costumes and play drinking games. Like the rest of Wynwood, Shots was booming.

Moments later, Shots owner Oscar Zapata glanced at the surveillance cameras in his office and saw squad cars pull up. The 31-year-old raced outside. Cops were everywhere, pushing patrons out. When Zapata explained he was one of the owners, police slapped handcuffs on him and sat him next to the three bartenders who had served the undercover officers their beers. Zapata was hauled to jail, where he spent 15 hours — all for selling booze at 3:10 a.m.

Zapata and his bartenders weren’t the only ones busted. Eleven other Wynwood bar owners or employees were arrested in February and March during Operation Dry Hour, when cops raided or inspected 17 establishments. Half a dozen were shut down. At least one has yet to reopen.

To Wynwood’s bar owners, the crackdown was a strategic assault against the up-and-coming neighborhood arranged by their competitors — the 24-hour downtown clubs. It’s more than an idle conspiracy theory: Those megaclubs have a cozy relationship with police thanks to a half-million bucks they’ve paid to off-duty officers for security in the past two years, not to mention political clout with Commissioner Marc Sarnoff.

“This whole operation isn’t about safety; it’s about pursuing certain clubs,” says Aaron Goldstein, whose club, Villa 221, was shut down by police. “The entertainment district is behind it. But fuck it. If Space and Mekka want to bully everybody out of the game, they are going to get an eye-opener.”

Those downtown clubs, though, counter that they just want their competitors to play by the rules. Miami police, citing illegal all-night warehouse parties, argue that Wynwood needs reining in.

“Wynwood is out of control,” says Michael Slyder, Mekka’s co-owner. “The law is the law. It’s black-and-white.”

One things is clear: Wynwood’s wild days are over. The neighborhood that made its name with edgy, all-night partying suddenly must deal with a new reality. And it’s not yet clear whether it will survive the shock.

Twenty-three years ago, the neighborhood faced much different problems. Then mostly poor and Puerto Rican, Wynwood exploded into flames and riots December 3, 1990, after Miami police officers were acquitted of fatally beating local drug dealer Leonardo Mercado.

Over the past decade, however, developers led by SoBe savior Tony Goldman bought empty warehouses and invited in art galleries. Art Basel’s satellite fairs brought investors. In 2008, the first fancy restaurant, Joey’s, moved in. Then came graffiti murals, bars, gentrification, and the ever-increasing madness of Second Saturday Art Walk.

By 2012, Wynwood was again exploding — not with riots but with crowds of rich and hip visitors. The New York Timeseven christened it “the next Meatpacking District,” after the swanky Manhattan neighborhood.

Zapata wanted in on the action. The half-Cuban, half-Colombian whiz kid comes from a family of entrepreneurs in Kendall. After studying computer engineering at Florida International University, he began designing cooling systems for local gaming company Alienware. But the pay sucked, so Zapata returned to FIU for a business degree. David Estrada, another ex-Alienware employee, had visited a bar in Medellín where customers had to dress up or do stunts with each shot. Soon the two friends were scouting for a location of their own.

With cheaper rent and a mellower vibe than downtown, Wynwood was an easy choice. Initially, Zapata and Estrada thought they could start the bar with just $40,000. “It was a quick reality check,” Zapata says with a laugh. Instead, the duo ended up investing nearly half a million dollars into Shots. But it’s more than money on the line for the young entrepreneur. With an infant daughter, he can’t afford to fail.

Shots opened December 4 at the height of Art Basel. Police and code enforcement officers arrived just three days later with warnings. “They gave us a laundry list of things to do,” Zapata says. “And we did them.”

So Zapata was shocked to find himself in the slammer February 24. He doesn’t deny that Shots was selling booze past 3 a.m., but he says everyone was doing it. “They never enforced this shit before,” he says.

Indeed, beginning in early February, cops inspected more than a dozen other Wynwood bars as part of Operation Dry Hour. Some, like Bardot on North Miami Avenue, were forced to close at 3 a.m. despite having a 5 a.m. liquor license. “It’s annoying,” owner Amir Ben-Zion says. “The wrong name was written on some document somewhere. I wish they would be more flexible and treat us like businesspeople.”

Zapata wasn’t the only bar owner led out in handcuffs, either. At Ricochet, cops arrested the manager and a bartender for selling booze just minutes after 3 a.m.

“The truth is that it’s political,” says Alan Roth, then the owner of Ricochet, which has since been sold. “There is energy and action happening in this area, and now they want to crack down?”

At least one club, the Electric Pickle, has yet to reopen after the arrests. When it was raided February 3, co-owner Tomas Ceddia was taken to jail for selling liquor outside of his license. And Goldstein, Villa 221’s owner, says he lost more than $200,000 when cops arrested him and shut down his club March 24 during Ultra. He spent all week trying to secure proper permits, so when police arrived at 3:30 a.m., he figured they wanted to see his papers again. Instead, a cop placed him in handcuffs.

“What kind of police work is this?” Goldstein says, arguing that cops should have booked his wayward bartender instead. “If somebody decided to be a loose canon and serve a drink [after 3 a.m.], my personal opinion is arrest that motherfucker.”

Half a dozen clubs complained to New Times that the crackdown came without warning. Police say they held a training session February 20 to discuss ramped-up inspections. The only problem: None of the Wynwood businesses was invited.

“That was a miscommunication,” admits Wanda Mendez, one of the officers leading Operation Dry Hour. “We apologize for that.”

But Wynwood bar owners’ complaints go beyond the Miami Police Department’s shock-and-awe tactics. Instead, they believe the neighborhood is being singled out by cops at the behest of their biggest rivals: 24-hour clubs downtown that are losing business to Wynwood.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is happening now because clubs in Park West are complaining,” Zapata says.

Those fears aren’t without some basis. In 2000, Miami commissioners voted to create a special “entertainment district” along North 11th Street downtown where booze could be sold 24 hours a day. Following a rising tide of crime and code violations in 2010, several 24-hour clubs formed a nonprofit called the Miami Entertainment District Association (MEDA). Miami PD doesn’t allow off-duty cops to work for individual clubs, so MEDA began hiring police to patrol the area.

According to Mekka’s owner, Slyder, who is also MEDA’s president, the nonprofit has spent nearly $500,000 on off-duty cops in the past two and a half years. Last month, MEDA paid for more than 700 hours of police patrols downtown.

The nonprofit also has some political clout. During the past election cycle, MEDA donated the maximum $500 to Commissioner Sarnoff, and Slyder says he regularly speaks with Sarnoff’s staff.

But both the police and MEDA deny any type of collusion. MPD points out that 43 percent of clubs checked during Operation Dry Hour were downtown, including six MEDA members, although it appears no arrests occurred there. “This is about ensuring safety all across Miami,” says MPD Commander Lázaro Ferro.

He says police began receiving complaints about illegal warehouse clubs in Wynwood last year. In September, cops shut down a pop-up club at 550 NW 29th St. that didn’t have any permits. “Nobody wants another nightclub fire like in Brazil,” Ferro says, referring to the inferno that killed at least 241 people this past January.

Slyder also insists MEDA has no influence over police operations. He points out that his business partner was once arrested for a noise violation. “We don’t get special treatment,” he says.

But Slyder does admit that MEDA has asked police and Sarnoff to clamp down on Wynwood clubs serving liquor after 3 a.m. (Ferro, the police commander, also says he’s discussed Wynwood clubs with the commissioner. But when called by New Times, Sarnoff denied any knowledge of Operation Dry Hour. “I don’t get involved in police business,” he said.)

Bizarrely, police are now encouraging Wynwood businesses to join MEDA or at least establish a similar organization to hire off-duty cops.

On April 9, Ferro organized a meeting among police, Wynwood bar owners, and MEDA at Shots. But the only Wynwood owners who showed were Zapata and Estrada.

(“I’m not going to negotiate with terrorists,” another bar owner, who did not attend the meeting, said of MEDA.)

At the meeting, Slyder slammed Zapata’s neighbors, calling Wynwood “the Wild, Wild West.” He emphasized, however, that he’d called the meeting to dispel rumors about MEDA, not to recruit new members. But Zapata remained suspicious. Slyder had spoken repeatedly about fairness, but the entertainment district’s 24-hour exception was itself an unfair advantage, Zapata said.

“Everything that is happening is by the book,” he said while sitting at the bar. “But even if it’s legit, do you really want to be forced to comply with the group that is behind the complaints? They are having police enforce the rules, but that’s because the rules work for their concept [of 24-hour clubs].”

At the moment, Zapata is caught between police officers who say they are cleaning up Wynwood and bar owners who think cops are killing it. While Ferro wants him to organize the owners, Zapata just wants to keep Shots — and his family — afloat.

“It bit us in the ass at first,” he said of the arrests before pausing to sip a Red Bull. “But what it shows is that they are starting to feel the pressure over in Park West. Wynwood is growing. And it’s going to be a player.”