Nevermind! Coral Gables settles dispute with Country Club operators

City takes over catering, event space May 2

DEVELOPING STORY: There’s no hearing this week. The city of Coral Gables apparently settled with Coral Grand, the operators of the Coral Gables Country Club, late Wednesday, on the eve of a three-hour evidentiary court hearing and a week after it moved to seize their property.

The city will pay the operators a certain amount for the equipment, furniture and other contents of the club and the athletic club and will take over on May 2.

This means there can be a smooth transition and the club and gym should remain open. Right?

According to the information received by Ladra, the receiver — or babysitting lawyer assigned to protect the assets — will remain in place until the settlement is approved by the city commission on April 26 and Coral Grand will continue to operate through the end of the month. Then Coral Grand is to turn over some of their property — unknown at this time how much or what — and their retail and beverage licenses to the city.

Many of the same employees will stay, so it could be seamless.

Looks like the city strong-armed its way into what it always wanted — the private property that they said the operators were “stealing.”

That was the reason, after all, that the city filed the “emergency” motion for an injunction at 7:46 p.m. April 12, about two weeks before the operators were set to vacate the premises. In the motion, the city said the operators were going to “remove marble from columns, tear out speakers and other equipment, remove counters and other items deemed fixtures, and load everything up in a truck that is headed for Canada.”

Nobody was going to rip out any marble from the walls.

In reality, the city and Coral Grand had not yet come to an agreement on the contents of the club — kitchen equipment, tables, sofas, umbrellas, chairs — that the city had appraised at $370,000 and the operators valued at closer to $1 million.

Ladra did not know Thursday morning how much the parties had agreed to, but the joint motion to cancel the evidentiary hearing states that the city and the operators had been in “ongoing discussions in an effort to achieve an amicable resolution of this litigation” since April 15.

“The Parties have reached an agreement in principle on essential terms that is subject to appropriate documentation, as well as approval and ratification by the City Commission,” the motion states.

Gables spokeswoman Martha Pantin issued a statement Thursday morning: “The city is pleased to move forward to serve the residents of Coral Gables and maintain this iconic and historic property.”

This might be over as far as the fight between the the city and Coral Grand — which, at one point, had the support of close to 3,000 residents on a petition. But there are a lot of unanswered questions about how this ugly episode rolled out in the City Beautiful.

What about the “millions” of dollars that the operators have “stolen” from the city through the hiding of revenue? Will that allegedly owed base and participation rent be paid to the city or was it part of the settlement for the city to write it off? Or was it all a lie to smear the family running the club since 2011?

“We have reached an agreement in principle and are moving forward. There was no attempt to ‘smear,'” said Gables spokeswoman Martha Pantin, without trying to answer the question.

And how many taxpayer dollars did the city spend on legal fees for this? In addition to Hernandez Gamez, the city had outside attorney Israel Reyes on the case. Ladra has made a public records request.

And how on Earth did the city get a judge to give them an emergency ex-parte order in the middle of the night on something that was apparently not such an emergency after all? The city’s outside counsel, Annie Hernandez Gamez, is married to a Miami-Dade County Judge Carlos Gamez, of the domestic violence division. So did she get a special friends and fam favor?

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Even the receiver who first asked for police presence — likely after reading the city’s dramatic and seemingly false emergency motion — didn’t think it was such an emergency, cancelling the police presence within a day.

Is that because nobody was ever going to steal anything?

The operators are going to have continued and unfettered access. So there is no real fear of them running off to Toronto with the copper pipes and marble countertops? Was there ever?

Could the city face sanctions for having filed such a non-emergency motion to manipulate their business transaction?

And does anybody think the city is going to be able to run a catering and event space? The athletic club with the tennis centers and swimming pool can be run by parks and recreation. They do that. But the venue?

Mark Ladra’s words: This won’t last. Coral Gables will soon be considering a new (or old) vendor to run the club.

Coral Gables Country Club

Nevermind! Coral Gables settles dispute with Country Club operators added by Ladra on April 21, 2022
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