Your Support is Needed
Many Thanks to bitchwax for the info below. RSC is where Derek and I met and fell in love. Downtown WPB used to be a total cracktown, but RSC started to bring young people downtown. WPB has experienced a cultural renaissance, so now they dont care about the young artists types, and the businesses they patronize, that started the renaissance. No, They would rather demolish everything and create expensive condos and more sterile chain stores and expensive restaurants. It is poor city planning, because this same type of district has been created right down the street in Cityplace, plus there is a similar upscale shopping community 15 minutes away in Palm Beach Gardens called Abacoa. How can it succeed if the you are saturating the market? Besides, the mayor is using extreme intimidation tactics, including the ATF!!!!
If you are from South Florida, you better write. If you have never been to RSC, but still want to send on your support for something that is not the usual booty/meat market club scene - you RULE!!!!!!! Please post this in your journal, so others may express there anger and disappointment.
RESPECTABLES STREET MAY BE CLOSED DOWN TODAY!?!
Respectable Street may be closed down TODAY?
Well I thought my worst fears had come true...
BUT now they may be actualized. Last night Thursday at 10:30pm a workers comp investigator named John C. Turner, III came in and served Respectable Street with a stop work order. I was contacted by phone in Delray and Mr. Turner came on the line to inform me we had to close our business. I reminded him of our conversation that I had with him the week prior in which he specifically stated that unless you hear back from me your ok.
What transpired last week was that Investigator John Turner along with Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and City of West Palm Police dept (see email below) inspected Respectable Street for the second time in a two week period. I was informed by Mr. Turner that he wanted me to provide payroll reports for the company. The following day I left 3 messages for Mr. Turner with no return phone call. That night, concerned that I had not talked with him I faxed over our employee records as well as left a detailed voice message with the information he asked for. I called the following day and reached Mr. Turner. He advised me he did receive the fax and did get my voice mails and that we were ok unless I heard back from him.
Mr. Turner then comes in at 10:30 pm last night, July 15th and hands us a stop work order. I get on the phone with Mr. Turner and he tells me he had not received the information he wanted. I refreshed his memory of our conversation. He did remember it but told me he did not have my phone number to contact me. I asked again if he received the fax because my phone number was on that as well as I had left him 4 messages the week before with my phone number as well. He then changed the subject and said my fax did not include the required information. I said you come by at 10:30 pm on a Thursday to shut us down and tell me that? Why wouldn't you contact me during the day so I would have a chance to give you that additional information. He then proceeded to tell me that because I am registered agent of Respectable Street that according to the law I am supposed to be available between the hours of 10am to Noon Monday through Friday. Shocked, as I never heard of such a law before, asked if he could fax me that State statute. He then changed the subject again to "well I counted 7 employees when I came in last week". I told him that was impossible and did he get there names. He said he did. I asked him for them and then he said he didn't have them and he left them at his office. I said so you come to downtown at 10:30pm on a Thursday night to close us down but you do not bring a file with any information at all. At that point he may have run out of State statutes to throw at me so he said I must call him first thing in the morning. I told him I work all night but I would have my attorney call him in the morning.
Now I am hoping at this point that my attorney will be available to drop everything and work on my issue first thing in the morning and that I will be able to reach him. If not im not sure if Mr. Turner will be back tonight to close us down? One thing that I found very unusual was that Mr. Turner said that he was working his way down the list of businesses that I own? I have many friends who own businesses in this area whom I have asked if they have any such inspections and they have said "never". Am I the lucky one? I know some other Clematis nightclubs have had these inspections but oddly enough not one business at CITY PLACE has been visited, even the nightclubs, nor have any of the daytime businesses according to what I have heard?
I am continually persuaded that these inspections are purely random and not wanting to believe otherwise I convince myself so. I can no longer agree or let myself believe this. Knowing that Mayor Frankel worked in Tallahassee for so long and her disdain for me and my businesses is so evident and vocalized I cannot believe these investigations are purely random.
Because of this I feel obligated, although regretful, in that I will file suit against Mayor Frankel and the City of West Palm Beach. At the very least through depositions and production of records through the Sunshine Law I will be able to ascertain what has transpired at the City level. We were once persuaded not to file suit against the City for what we thought was blackmail by the City in transferring the Moonfest rights to the Sunfest organization. I look forward to revisiting that issue as well.
I hope to see everyone at Respectable Street tonight but I guess I wont be surprised if our doors are forced shut.
Sincerely,
Rodney Mayo
rodneymayo@mindspring.com
561-714-2382
http://www.respectablestreet.com
PS. If you feel strongly about this issue please email or call your Commissioner and voice your opinion. The contact information is:
Mayor
Lois J. Frankel
200 2nd Street
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: (561) 659-8025
E-mail: lfrankel@wpb.org
James L. Exline
District 1 City Commissioner
200 2nd Street
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: [561] 659.8099
Fax: [561] 653.2630
E-mail: jexline@wpb.org
Ike Robinson, Jr.
District 2 City Commissioner
200 2nd Street West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: [561] 659-8099
Fax: [561] 653-2630
E-mail: Irobinson@wpb.org
Commission President
Kimberly Mitchell
District 3 City Commissioner
200 2nd Street
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: [561] 659-8099
Fax: [561] 653-2630
E-mail: kmitchel@wpb.org
Ray Liberti
District 4 City Commissioner
200 2nd Street
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: [561] 659-8099
Fax: [561] 653-2630
E-mail: rliberti@wpb.org
William (Bill) Moss
District 5 City Commissioner
200 2nd Street, 5th Floor
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
Phone: [561] 659-8099
Fax: [561] 653-2630
E-mail: wmoss@wpb.org