The debate was over before it started, but the maquinita issue is not going to go away as easily as it disappeared last week on the dais.
Just days after a proposed countywide ban on the proliferating gambling machines was defeated by the Miami-Dade Commission without as much as a why, Commissioner Juan Zapata, co-sponsor of the measure brought by Commissioner Sally Heyman, said he was going to bring back a new plan. He can’t bring the same proposal back for six months, according to county rules, but he might be able to if he changes it.
And this one, he has hinted, would regulate, not ban, the cash-swalling maquinitas.
You mean, like Hialeah does? Charge the owners a special permit fee so you can have a tally that is probably off anyway at the end of the day? Really?
What’s the point of that?
Last week’s good and strong measure likely died, at least in part, at the behest of people who lobbied commissioners to keep their cities out of the restriction. That includes, but is not limited to, Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, whose campaign coffers are lavishly lined with maquinita money and who practically begged a couple of commissioners, who then told Ladra, to leave Hialeah out of any countywide measure.
Of course he did. He is representing his interests.
Tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions have gone to him and his PACs and his pals from the people and companies that own the most permits in the city. Jesus Navarro, the number one maquinita king of Hialeah, gave at least $20,000 himself, through his companies, just from the first round to the run-off. Navarro and Jesus Abreu, another maquinita permit holder, even threw Hernandez a fundraiser in 2011 at ballroom where Ladra and El Nuevo Herald reporter Enrique Flor were blocked from entering. That doesn’t even begin to count the tens of thousands received from cafeteria owners, some of whom told Ladra and other reporters that they were given the $500 from the permit holding maquinita kings who put machines in their businesses and told to give it to the Castro campaign. That’s a third party donation, illegal, but quite rampant in our midst apparently. (Attention State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, there are some really good leads here).
Castro also has a questionable loan out — you know, one of those high interest personal loans like the First Hialeah Bank of Julito gives — to Recaredo Gutierrez, a maquinita operator whose loan came up during a brief investigation of Robaina’s freelance financing that went nowhere. So, it’s no wonder Castro lobbied commissioners against the countywide ordinance that would ban his friends’ source of income. Lots and lots of income.
And he has a re-election this year, so he wants to show their return on investment. So that they want to keep on giving.
But there are also elections in Miami, where the maquinitas are also part of the political landscape and are likely to play a part in the campaigns.
This should have been stopped in the last 18 months, after Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez was elected over former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, whose campaigns were also heavily funded by the shadowy industry, which were then funding attack ads on The G Man.
Back then, Gimenez the candidate praised the Miami-Dade Police raid of a maquinita warehouse and said they were a scourge on our society.
“The citizens of this community have spoken against this illegal activity,” Gimenez said in a press release issued one day after the raid. “Today, I stand with the people of this community and with law enforcement in denouncing this delinquent activity.”
Later in the campaign, Gimenez the candidate went a step further on Channel 10’s Michael Putney show and said he would actually ban maquinitas. “If I were mayor, I’d definitely propose an ordinance to outlaw them throughout Miami-Dade County,” Candidate Gimenez said. “Because frankly, Michael, I believe that there’s organized crime behind this.”
Ladra wishes we could find that video in the Channel 10 archives. But that quote was reprinted by Mike Hatami, who blogs on The Straw Buyer, last year. And I remember Gimenez saying something to that effect. Better yet, so does Putney.
“I do recall that as candidate for mayor, that he said he thought maquinitas were absolutely illegal games of chance and not games of skill and that he was going to appoint a task force to get rid of them,” Putney told Ladra Tuesday.
Has he done anything I don’t know about, Michael? “To my knowledge, he has not done a thing,” Putney said.
So let’s remind the mayor of his own words: “If I were mayor, I’d definitely propose an ordinance to outlaw them throughout Miami-Dade County… Because frankly, Michael, I believe that there’s organized crime behind this.”
Duh, mayor. And guess what? You are the mayor now. Is it too much for us to expect you to actually do something. Nah. Instead he actually missed the whole first reading, during which there was no discussion, and chose to say nada on the matter. Everyone tells me that they could not discuss it on first reading (even though it seems to be there are other things discussed on first reading), before it was trashed 4 – 7 . The nos were Commissioners Barbara Jordan, Audrey Edmonson — who switched her original yes — Bruno Barreiro, Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez, Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa and Vice Chair Lynda Bell. Not voting: Commissioners Dennis Moss and Esteban Bovo, contrary to what Ladra had thought. But maybe he stepped away on purpose and that maybe is a good thing.
But he has also done nada on the matter in the 18 months he has been in office.
I called Gimenez’s chief of staff, Chip Iglesias, last week to see if I could ask the mayor himself about this about face. I told Chip I know Ladra is not The G Man’s favorite blogger anymore, and that it’s not easy for me to face him either, but we’re both adults and the time has come. Gimenez, the mayor, has not called me back. Chip told me he was out of town and busy with other stuff, police director interviews, for instance. Chip did say that the mayor was genuinely surprised the measure was killed on first reading, rather than let it go to committee for debate. And he told Ladra that Gimenez had contacted both Attorney General Pam Bondi and Fernandez-Rundle about maquinitas and what could be done, but that he was currently sidetracked with his elections advisory board.
Ladra can’t help but wonder if Gimenez calls “Castro” Hernandez back and has the nauseaus suspicion he does. I couldn’t find any obvious maquinita money in the mayor’s campaign last year — and let me tell you it takes time to even give a cursory once-through of the 3,027 contributions in his campaign ($1.13 million) and the 702 gifts to his PAC, Common Sense Now ($2.65 million).
But he did make friends with friends of the maquinita mafia when he buddied up with Castro and the Seguro Que Yes Council of crooks in Hialeah. And monies could have been given through third parties — just like Castro’s cafeteria contributions. Just sayin’.
There is no doubt that maquinitas and the industry have been tied to organized crime and drugs. Studies have proven it. There is pudding in past arrests. Does anyone remember Jose M. Battle, the leader of the so-called “Cuban Mafia” that had maquinitas as part of its empire? One of the maquinita company owners who was implicated in that 2004 federal racketeering case gave almost $3,000 to the Robaina 2011 campaign. By then, charges against Orlando Cordoves were dismissed, said his attorney Rick Diaz. Yep, the same Rick Diaz who represented Julio Robaina while he was being investigated for his loansharking activities and role in a ponzi scheme.
There is no doubt that maquinitas are bad for our society and for our economy. There is no doubt that what Hialeah leaders consider “family entertainment” and what Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado battled his former police chief to protect is killing our quality of life in many communities.
There is also no doubt that the political reality is that the industry has the dollars it needs to keep good and effective laws from affecting them by keeping candidate speak as just that and making them sound just like the maquinitas: Beeping and buzzing with no real prize at the end.
Candidate Gimenez: ‘Bad maquinitas’; Mayor G: Silence added by Ladra on
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