Well, well, well.
I guess it takes the investigation and resulting resignation of Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll due to her ties to internet gaming cafes and simulated slots for the local political community to wake up and smell the illegal activity.
In the wake of Carroll’s forced abrupt departure, there is an avalanche of support for near certain House Bill 155 which will close all the loopholes and put a statewide ban on internet cafes and maquinitas that have proliferated all over Miami-Dade, especially Hialeah and city of Miami proper.
And all of it seems like convenient bandwagon jumping to me. Or rats deserting a sinking ship.
Except for Ladra’s new hero, State Rep. Carlos Trujillo (R- Doral), who introduced the bill in January — before the LG quit and the subject became a political hot potato — and voted against maquinitas in last year’s session for legislation that died at the Senate. And Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, whose amendments basically gutted the controversial 2010 city ordinance amendment pushed aggressively by Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado as a revenue-generating measure. It was supposed to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars, at $500 per machine per year. It has not brought in one cent, but only because of caveats and language added by Suarez after much research by his chief of staff, Michael Llorente (yes, former State Rep. Marcelo Llorente‘s baby brother), who has a series of emails back and forth with city attorneys dating back years in which he disagrees with their interpretation of the laws, which have been upheld every single time in Florida courts.
Everybody else is simply being politically expedient in light of almost certain legislation cooking fast on the heat turned up by the 57 arrests and investigation into Allied Veterans, the Carroll-tied organization that is accused illegal gambling operations after a year-long investigation.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez and his staff are so proud of his statement in support of the bill that Ladra got it in her inbox twice. One staffer just wanted to be sure I saw it and that it didn’t get lost in a sea of press releases.
“I commend Florida State Representatives Carlos Trujillo of District 105 in Doral and Jimmy Patronis of District 6 in Panama City for taking a leadership role in jointly sponsoring House Bill HB-155 to establish a statewide ban on both internet cafes and maquinitas,” the mayor’s statement reads, proving Gimenez can see an opportunity when there is one.
“I have held a long-standing position against these machines and as a County Commissioner introduced legislation to address this issue, including the creation of an Illegal Gaming Task Force,” he wrote. “I believe that ‘maquinitas‘ have been behind the proliferation of illegal gaming operations, which are associated with organized crime. HB-155 makes it clear that these machines are illegal and will deter the continued growth of illegal activities in Miami-Dade County and throughout the State of Florida.”
But Gimenez, who also conveniently bashed the maquinita industry during his 2011 post-recall mayoral campaign against Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina — who took tens of thousands from the industry — never did a thing once he was elected. This anti-maquinita movement should have been driven south to north, not north to south. But an ordinance sponsored by Commissioners Juan Zapata and Sally Heyman to ban the obviously illegal machines was killed without discussion earlier this year.
Now, the latest to join the trendy anti-maquinita choir is Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, according to the Miami Herald story today (Thursday, May 21).
Yes, this is the same guy whose vocal defense of the maquinita owners and interference with a Miami Police sting led to the eventual resignation of Police Chief Miguel Exposito, who must be having a wonderful day. The same guy who let Orlando Cordoves, one of the maquinita kingpins, help write the amendment to expand the existing coin-operated machine ordinance to include these machines that were already illegal by state and all court standards. The same guy who has tried to paint the poker and slot machines as electronic amusement contraptions. The same guy who reportedly disappeared a study by an Atlantic City expert through the city attorney’s office that, according to blogger gods Francisco Alvarado and Mike Hatami of the Strawbuyer, found rampant illegal gambling in Miami’s mundo de maquinitas.
Of course, he’s not ardently supporting the legislation against the slot machines, about 150 of which have been seized by Miami and Miami-Dade Police since 2009. In fact, Regalado — who is facing a tough re-election in November against Suarez — is just echoing the sentiments of the city’s chief code enforcement officer, who was the one to make the bold statement (read: duh) that every machine is illegal. This after three months on the job. “That’s what I think,” the mayor was quoted as saying in the paper, agreeing with his employee. In other words: “What he said.”
Maybe that’s because Regalado, who has always been cozy with the maquinita industry and was trying to legitimize them, is not on board the bandwagon on the same, and sane, grounds as all the other rats. It’s not that these machines are illegal because they are games of chance, he tells the Herald. They are illegal because the owners have not sought permits under Miami’s law, fashioned after Hialeah’s. Not one single permit has been sought under this regulating legislation in Miami.
But the mayor can’t take credit for that strangling “regulation.” The owners of the machines have not sought the required stickers because Suarez, um, mitigated Regalado’s intentions with not one but three poison pill amendments that made it impossible to get those pesky permits, known as “business tax receipts,” for maquinitas that simulated casino card games or slot machines.
“This is a cancer on the city that leads to organized crime and prostitution,” Suarez told Ladra Thursday when I called him to comment on the mayor’s sorta not really flip flop.
“The mayor’s 2010 draft of the legislation was meant to legitimize and charge the industry. It was a money-making legalization scheme. I thwarted that attempt by amending the legislation, by including language which led for not one single BTR being issued,” Suarez said.
Regalado’s measure would have included the maquinitas like those under the same category as, say, PacMan and Galaxy, and even he knew the Suarez addendum axed that more than two years ago. He said at that meeting when the city voted on it that they’d might as well not consider the change at all and go back to the status quo.
Gotcha! Because now, much to the contrary of what the media and Regalado have been saying for years, those particular slot and poker machines are illegal anyway. Says Llorente: “The mayor wanted to expand the definition of coin operated machines and legalize maquinitas. We took the opportunity to strenghthen the regulations on them.”
Ladra has another suspected reason for Regalado’s more recent reverse on the issue: The mayor must not be getting the same kind of coinage in campaign contributions from the maquinita industry that he has in the past. And please do not believe the Herald’s stated figures of $14,000 for Regalado’s last campaign and $15,000 for Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, who, by the way, has remained silent on the issue. That does not count the dozens of cafeterias that gave maximum $500 contributions from third parties (read: permit holders) and fundraisers thrown by maquinita kingpins Cordoves, Jesus Navarro and Jesus Abreu and his wife Odalys Abreu or money funneled through PACs.
The real figures are more likely in the six figures.
Which kind of makes Ladra wonder why this gang hasn’t hired a few big time lobbyists to do a little crisis control and try to tweak Trujillo’s bill to salvage some of their multi-million dollar business.
“It just happened so fast,” said Trujillo, who also believes the bill, benefiting from the poor LG’s legal troubles, will pass with flying colors.
“Absolutely. Those people who last year were big advocates of regulation, rather than banning them, are now saying ‘These machines are the devil and we don’t want them,’” Trujillo told Ladra Thursday, the day before the bill’s final vote in the House Friday (tomorrow, May 22).
The Senate version will get it next week or the week after and that is the home of one of or the industry’s head cheerleaders, Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R-Coral Gables). The senior DLP — who, the Associated Press disclosed, took contributions from four of those arrested in the Carroll case — is one of the banning legislation’s killer last year and has introduced his own bill this session on the Senate side that regulates (read: legitimizes) instead of bans the internet gaming cafes and maquinitas. It is one of a few subjects that Ladra and the Senator — a family friend and self-appointed editor who will complain that this blog post is too long — argue about consistently (the others being charter schools and red light cameras) and will likely discuss again. Soon, I hope. I could not reach him Thursday but, you know, he may be working.
Others in Tallahassee have been beneficiaries of the beeping, buzzing maquinitas to the tune of more than $1 million, according to a Miami Herald/Tampa Times analysis in a story by Mary Ellen Klas, whose coverage has been relentless. It shows the industry gave at least $50,000 to the House Majority, led by House Speaker Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel), $30,000 to the Senate Majority, led by Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville), $65,000 to Sen. Jack Latvala (R-St. Petersburg) and his PAC, $25,000 each to PACs controlled by Rep. Richard Corcoran (R-Trinity) and Sen. Joe Negron, (R-Palm City), $80,000 to numerous legislators directly and $116,000 to a PAC controlled by lobbyist David Ramba, whose private plane jetted lawmakers back and forth to the state capital and who represents a number of gaming interests.
Yes, the gambling business seems to favor the GOP over the minority party: According to the AP story, nearly $300,000 has gone to the Republican Party of Florida, twice as much as almost $150,000 funneled to the Florida Democratic Party.
Some of those contribution recipients, like Gaetz, have said that they are reviewing their financial reports and returning donations from the now glaringly obviously tainted sources. Others, like the Hialeah crooks and Mayor Castro Hernandez, whose re-election coffers this year just lost a few pounds, have been intentionally silent.
Suarez, who has railed against the maquinitas time and again at meetings in discussion, has not taken money from the industry — which probably was not offering it to one of their main enemies. Trujillo, who never drank from the corrupt cup either, says he is unafraid of any backlash that there might be from colleagues who have and that he has not, in fact, been approached or pushed to soften the bill in any way.
“I think that ship has sailed,” he told Ladra. “Nobody is jumping in front of that train. There’s nothing left to do. It’s going to pass.”
And local electeds and law enforcement should prepare because it will be effective and enforceable immediately, he added.
“So it’s incumbent upon the State Attorney and Hialeah and everyone else to have a contingency plan,” Trujillo said, and Ladra’s heart skipped a beat. My hero.
Then, I remembered that Miami-Dade has it’s own home rule charter ability and could, in theory, pass its own ordinance to again regulate the industry. Luckily, no city (read: Hialeah) can do it. But I am pretty sure that the maquinita mafia is looking into that track since they don’t have a snowball’s chance on South Beach regarding the Tallahassee wave.
Of course, that may prove to be difficult now, as Ladra fully expects the tainted stain of maquinita stench to last a bit. Especially as more connections are likely to be exposed and rats are running scared.
And we can always remind Mayor Gimenez that his “long standing position” would be contrary to that.
Anti maquinita wave: part real, part politically expedient added by Ladra on
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