As I reported yesterday in Oh, REALLY?, North Miami Beach’s newest strip club, Black Diamonds, came before the City Council last night to request an extension of its business hours until 6:00 AM.  Most of the time, this procedure is fairly routine.  Frequently, an attorney representing a business will appear at the Council meeting to make the request, although on occasion it might be the business owner or manager.  Most of the time, the request is granted as a matter of course.  In this particular case, however, a minor controversy regarding the previous occupant of the building put into motion an entirely new set of rules and regulations regarding “adult entertainment establishments.”

By way of just one example, on September 4, 2012, the City Council passed Ordinance No. 2012-18 (see pages 89-93 of the September 4, 2012 Council Meeting, for the purpose of allowing alcohol to be served where there is nude entertainment.  At that time, the Council grandfathered in the existing three businesses by affirming:

“WHEREAS, there are currently three adult entertainment businesses within the City of North Miami Beach providing total nude dancing and dealing in alcoholic beverages.”

The business known as “Swinging Richards” was included in those “three adult entertainment businesses.

The business known as “Black Diamonds” was not.

In fact, Swinging Richards was the reason this matter even came to light in the first place.

If you ask me, and in my humble opinion of course, Black Diamonds is pretty damn lucky the Council doesn’t force it to comply with the previous “booze OR boobs” Ordinance.

Just saying.

Imagine my surprise when I started watching last night’s North Miami Beach City Council meeting to see none other than Criminal Lawyer Benedict P. Kuehne at the podium addressing the City Council on behalf of Black Diamonds.

WTF?

I could list all the reasons why Black Diamonds should not receive the privilege of being automatically granted extended business hours, not the least of which is that it has yet to prove itself to be a good neighbor.  It’s only been open for a month, and this new business is already expecting to be treated the same as the two existing strip clubs in North Miami Beach.  This is just totally ridiculous.

But, even more ridiculous is that Black Diamonds enlisted the help of a big gun like Ben Kuehne to argue on its behalf before the City Council for such a small-time matter.  Then again, I’m quite curious as to why Kuehne would agree to take on this job in the first place.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the criminal lawyer just happens to have represented one of the lobbyists for Black Diamonds.

Of course, it could just be a coincidence.  Yeah, that must be it.

Even more curious, however, is that Ben told the Council that Fabiana Sibilia, the President of Queen of Dyamonds, Inc., which owns Black Diamonds, had never owned or run a strip club before.  The odd thing is that her husband, Clifford P. Sibilia, with whom she owns a company called 50 Plus Investments and Real Estate Group, Inc., was the owner and operator of a strip club in Hialeah.  This is a franchise of a national chain of strip clubs known as PT’s Showclub.  Mr. Sibilia’s franchise was located at 7565 West 20th Avenue, and operated under a company called Platinum Plus 1 Corp., of which he was the president.  It appears he only operated the club for less than a year because Platinum Plus 1 Corp. was formed on November 8, 2012 and administratively dissolved on September 27, 2013.  PT’s Showclub in Hialeah is still in business, but owned and operated by a different entity or entities.

Clifford P. Sibilia’s venture into the world of adult entertainment seems to have been a bust.  His wife, Fabiana, would have us believe she’ll fare better.  For some odd reason, I have my doubts.  But I could be wrong.  I do wish her much success though.

While the issue of extended business hours was being discussed among the Council members last night, it appeared to me that five of the seven on the dais were prepared to vote it down.  Mayor George Vallejo was all for granting the extension.  Frantz Pierre, who gave a long-winded, entirely unintelligible speech about raising children (at least I think it was about children – and, yes, WTF?), appeared to agree with the Mayor.  Councilman Tony DeFillipo, reading from a prepared speech, was adamantly against it, as were his colleagues Phyllis Smith and Beth Spiegel.  Barbara Kramer and Marlen Martell appeared to be leaning in the same direction.

One of the reasons against granting the extension was that one or two Council members stated that they previously agreed to wait until Black Diamonds had been in business for three months before considering allowing them to stay open until 6:00 AM.

But then they couldn’t all agree that they previously agreed to such an arrangement.  Um, okay.

Then the Council started arguing, er, I mean, heatedly discussing, whether or not Black Diamonds was to be considered a “new business” for the purpose of all the grandfathering-in clauses that pertained to the three strip clubs, which the Council had previously voted on at the September 4, 2012 Council meeting.

The Mayor insisted that Black Diamonds was to be included because of the nature of the business, while Councilwoman Spiegel insisted that it was not because ownership had changed hands.

During all the discussing, I have to point out that I got my giggle in when the very staid, uber straight laced Ben Kuehne uttered the words “Booby Trap” after he was asked about other strip clubs in the county that stay open until 6:00 AM.  For some reason, that tickled my funny bone.  Go figure.

I also have to give a great big shout out to Phyllis Smith for hammering home the point that no business serving alcohol should be allowed to say open until 6:00 AM when many kids are going to school.  Yes, PHYLLIS!  Go figure.

I also especially loved Beth Spiegel’s comment that she was drawing a line in the sand that Black Diamonds is to be considered a “new business,” and not simply another “fictitious name” for the tenant, SMG Entertainment, Inc.  I couldn’t agree more.

After his tête-à-tête with Beth Spiegel, the Mayor shut down the discussion and the vote.  He suggested that the legal department research the issue and get back to the Council as to who was right.  He also asked if Black Diamonds was willing to revoke its request for extended hours until after the matter had been resolved.  Everyone seemed greatly relieved to take the matter off the table, although I’m guessing for very different reasons.  (For one, Ben Kuehne will get to add another hour or so, plus travel time, to his bill for legal services.)  In any event, it will be back probably by the next regular Council meeting, or until a special meeting is called.

For the time being, Black Diamonds must close at 4:00 AM until further notice.  Meanwhile, its website still advertises a 6:00 AM closing, but its Facebook advertisement claiming “NOW OPEN ‘TIL 6 AM” has been taken down.

Oh, well.

Now the battle for votes will begin again in earnest.  The lobbyists for Black Diamonds, aided and abetted by Super Lawyer Ben Kuehne, are bound and determined to earn their keep from their client.  Most of the residents I’ve heard from would love nothing more than for ALL the strip clubs to just go away.  Permanently.  But since that’s not gonna happen any time soon, they will settle for having them close at the more reasonable time of 4:00 AM.  “Reasonable,” of course, being relative.

I will close with the sentiment that one of my readers so awesomely expressed on my previous blog, “No, I do not want our city council to allow this strip club to stay open until 6 AM”. Let’s face it, extending club hours increases the all around ”sleeze” factor. Secondly, these partiers will now be competing with Miami Dade County School buses for lane space and finally, our police department needs to be watching out for our kids in the morning, not assisting Mr. Vanderbilt the voyeur when he gets his gold chains snatched in the parking lot by opportunistic teens on their way to the bus stop.”

She’s just saying, of course.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”