As the North Miami Beach City Council members contemplate whether or not to extend the business hours of the Black Diamonds strip club tonight, I’d thought I’d give them just a little bit more food for thought.  Ya know, just in case any of them are still on the fence about how they should vote.

This matter first came before the Council two weeks ago.  As I reported at that time in Oh, REALLY?, Black Diamonds had already been advertising its business hours as “6:00 pm – 6:00 am!” as if being granted permission to do so was a foregone conclusion.
 
As of today, the Black Diamonds website is STILL advertising that its hours are from “6:00 pm – 6:00 am!”

Apparently, this strip club is treating its request for extended business hours as nothing more than a mere triviality, rather than a formal petition before a governmental body.

Here’s the thing.  This strip club has caused nothing but trouble for North Miami Beach from the minute it started subleasing the premises located at 17450 Biscayne Boulevard.  Aside from Black Diamond’s controversial request for the privilege of additional extended business hours, there is the matter of its habitual abuse of the 4:00 AM closing time it has already been granted.

On top of that, in addition to the three after-closing-hours incidents I reported in yesterday’s blog, Rant of the Day, there were two other incidents for which the police were called.  On November 20, 2013 at 1:24 AM, a vehicle was burglarized, and on November 29, 2013 at 3:52 AM, there was a customer dispute, which was settled by the time the police arrived at the scene.

Black Diamonds has been in operation slightly more than a month and has already required five visits by officers from the North Miami Beach Police Department.  If it continues at that rate, we can expect the police to be called to that location anywhere from 50 to 60 times a year.

What a freaking waste of our resources!  Maybe the taxpayers should consider charging them by the call for such personalized service.

Just saying.

In any event, I’m still hoping that the North Miami Beach City Council will realize that their constituents really, really, really don’t want strip clubs in our city, much less have them open for business until 6:00 AM when so many of our residents and their children are heading out to work and school.

The fact remains that Black Diamonds has completely disregarded its requirement to close by 4:00 AM., while continuing to advertise that it stays open until 6:00 AM.

And, yet, Black Diamonds will probably dispatch the high priced Super Criminal Trial Lawyer Benedict P. Kuehne to City Hall tonight to do his thing before the Council, with the full expectation that it will get its way.  No questions asked.

Black Diamonds has been laughing in the faces of our City Manager, our Police Department and our elected officials by continuing its blatantly disrespectful ways.

I’m hoping our City Council will simply laugh back.  Then say “no.”

Let’s see who gets the last laugh.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”