Watch as Hialeah, Miami mayors dance the maquinita shift

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There’s a new dance in town. It is called the maquinita shift.

And it’s made up mostly of backflips.

It would seem, from the quick reaction and removal of maquinitas from cafeterias and arcades in Miami and Hialeah after the state ban passed earlier this month, that Mayors Tomas Regalado and Carlos “Castro” Hernandez of those cities, respectively, have always been against the tragamonedas that were, by all accounts, illegal by state standards already, yet falling through some loophole crack.

But let Ladra remind everyone that they are simply complying with the law — now that they have no loophole and no other choice.

“Our priority is to obey the law,” Hernandez told El Nuevo Herald reporter Enrique Flor last week. “When the governor signed the law… our licensing department immediately contacted all the owners of maquinitas to tell them they had 48 hours to pick them up.”

Regalado, who has spent most of his political career defending the illegal slot machine business, will be a little bit more dramatic with a press conference he called for 10:30 this morning. He will be flanked by City Manager Johnny Martinez and Police Chief Manuel Orosa when he demonstrates — for the benefit of TV cameras on an election year — how the maquinitas they confiscate will be destroyed.

Hey! It makes for good TV!

But let Ladra remind everyone that Regalado’s campaigns have been financed in the past by the maquinita license holders, with close to $15,000 in contributions from gaming machine industry people in 2009. And that, in fact, he got $1,500 in contributions for this year’s contentious race as recently as last month from Jesus Navarro, who is one of the maquinita kings with the most number of licenses in the city of Hialeah.

Let Ladra remind everyone that about seven months after those people helped put him in office, the mayor’s first proposed real legislation was a failed attempt to legitimize them even further. And that reports in El Nuevo Herald indicated Regalado drafted the ordinance in collaboration with the gaming machine industry, getting input from industry leaders, including a man who was charged in a 2004 federal gambling racketeering case that targeted the so-called “Cuban mafia” led by Jose M. Battle.

Let Ladra remind everyone that the mayor may have interfered with an official police operation to protect his campaign contributors and may have bribed former Police Chief Miguel Exposito in order to cover that up and keep the maquinitas ka-chinging away. A year after that investigation, he fired Exposito for “insubordination” and hired attorney Al Milian, who also happens to represent many in the gaming machine industry, to serve as chief, special prosecutor in Exposito’s suspension hearing.

Special alright.

Ladra is not the only one reminding people. Naturally, this got the attention of Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, who is challenging Regalado for the mayor’s seat and called it “a stunning display of hypocrisy and political opportunism.” His campaign team quickly shot off a “timeline” of Regalado’s maquinita moves to remind everyone that this is a 180-degree turn — and at just the perfect political moment.

“Mayor Regalado is turning his back on the industry he has long defended and attempting to re-brand himself as an anti-maquinita crusader,” Suarez said. “Sorry, Mr. Mayor, you cannot break your ties to the gaming machine industry by smashing a maquinita for the cameras.”

And he could be right. Because the mayor was silent last month when Suarez presented a resolution urging the Florida legislature to vote in favor of the ban.

Maybe there were no cameras other than the city’s public access channel, which barely anybody watches anyway. Why dance if nobody is watching?