Your downtown noise violation update.

[Guest JustDade]

BTW - Since you mention Karu & Y....

Just before X-Mass the owners of Karu & Y gathered the neighborhood children whose families could not afford gifts for them, chartered several busses, took them to the new Target in the Design Dist for a shopping spree, spent tens of thousands of dollars buying them anything they wanted....THEN....took them all back to the venue, (parents included), and served them all a free lunch. What a bunch of assholes they are. They have been robbed at least ten times since.

[Guest endymion]

Now you're telling them to move further west to accomodate some night clubs, and maybe a baseball stadium.

Do you know how many jobs a stadium can create? A typical stadium can have some where around 1500 event day employees. I personally doubt a baseball player is going to sell me nuts at my seat or clean the bathrooms after Barbarino drinks ten Amstel lights.

Okay but have you seen where they plan to build it? People live there. Many people. Huge amount of land. Where do you want those people to move, the Everglades? Haiti?

Dade, there are high-crime areas. You moved your club into a high-crime area. You were the victim of crime. No more of a surprise than a condo resident who moves into an entertainment district next to a nightclub and then acts surprised when it's loud all night.

[Guest addictedtospace]

Now you're telling them to move further west to accomodate some night clubs, and maybe a baseball stadium.

Do you know how many jobs a stadium can create? A typical stadium can have some where around 1500 event day employees. I personally doubt a baseball player is going to sell me nuts at my seat or clean the bathrooms after Barbarino drinks ten Amstel lights.

Okay but have you seen where they plan to build it? People live there. Many people. Huge amount of land. Where do you want those people to move, the Everglades? Haiti?

Dade, there are high-crime areas. You moved your club into a high-crime area. You were the victim of crime. No more of a surprise than a condo resident who moves into an entertainment district next to a nightclub and then acts surprised when it's loud all night.

No but maybe with a job they can afford to move to one of the many other "poor" cities in Miami-Dade.

What do you propose then? What's your fix?

[BobbyTrendy]

BTW - Since you mention Karu & Y....

Just before X-Mass the owners of Karu & Y gathered the neighborhood children whose families could not afford gifts for them, chartered several busses, took them to the new Target in the Design Dist for a shopping spree, spent tens of thousands of dollars buying them anything they wanted....THEN....took them all back to the venue, (parents included), and served them all a free lunch. What a bunch of assholes they are. They have been robbed at least ten times since.

um thats what you get for not buying them computers apparently. lol

[Guest addictedtospace]

BTW - Since you mention Karu & Y....

Just before X-Mass the owners of Karu & Y gathered the neighborhood children whose families could not afford gifts for them, chartered several busses, took them to the new Target in the Design Dist for a shopping spree, spent tens of thousands of dollars buying them anything they wanted....THEN....took them all back to the venue, (parents included), and served them all a free lunch. What a bunch of assholes they are. They have been robbed at least ten times since.

um thats what you get for not buying them computers apparently. lol

Watch out Circuit City in Midtown, I hear they didn't give them any Plasmas either!

[Guest RzO]

The inability of otherwise smart people to understand the poverty issue is amble evidence of its complexity. Certainly, even Techjunkie is going to be able to amply educate everyone in a few short sentences on a nightlife (or any other) forum.

I have a degree in economics, I think I understand poverty from an economic standpoint.

1. don't have kids out of wed lock

2. don't commit crimes

3. get an education

4. learn english

5. go to college or learn a trade

6. Root for the jets

not too difficult!

id hate to play devils advocate, but having a degree in political science, i agree with all these points, cept for the jets, i root giants!

although i feel bad for alot of the poor, and i am liberal in most politics, i think some of them do perpetuate the stereotype. problem is the ones that really need it get screwed sometimes by some degenerate scamsters

as far the ones born into poverty, we have all seen/heard the stories of many a folk who rise above it. no one is saying it is going to be easy and some have a greater challenges than others, but i believe anyone can succeed if they actually care about school and do well.

shit i got a free education at Florida, just because i did well in high school and bright futures paid for it. ANYONE in our public school system can do the same.

[Guest pod]

The clubs need to make a big deal when they do stuff like this. Media alerts, the whole nine yards. Right now, your average citizen sees the clubs as a bunch of no-good profiteers whose venues are packed to the gills with drug fiends, prostitutes (the real ones), and various other lowlifes. One of the things I've tried to do over the years is portray the positive aspects of our scene. Whether it does any good, I don't know, but I still try my best to convey the fun and upbeat side of going out.

Does fucked up shit go on in the clubs around here? You bet. I'd be lying if I said everything was sunshine and lollipops. And no club is immune from it. I've seen fucked up shit go on all over, whether it be on the Beach, Downtown, the Hard Rock, Lauderdale, Delray, West Palm, or wherever. It's a fact of the industry.

Unfortunately, people gravitate on that. What Karu & Y did was a pretty cool thing. They really needed to advertise the fact though.

[Guest RzO]

exactly, by nature a nightclub is going to have plenty of bad going around, i mean its is the nature of the industry, people go out at night and shady things sometimes happen

as stated though the publicity of clubs doing good for the community is commonly overlooked.

it would be good for them to get a little good publicity when it is warranted

[Guest JustDade]

Get on a boat with nothing come to this country and make a life for yourself. That's what the Irish and Italians did and they succeeded.

Another group of people did this as well, you may have heard of them, they are known as Cubans! Racism? Nope realism yes.

How about Asians?

How about Jews?

If you think the challenges faced by all these groups are equal... you're just a plain fool... but we all know that by now. How much institutionalized discrimination did those other groups face?

After the initial waves of WHITE European immigrants came and set up shop... it wasn't all that hard for future waves to come over and have a good starting point.

For the record: My family is Jamaican and I have black blood as well as black family. I am also half Jewish.

If you honestly believe that Jews are less discriminated against than blacks you're very wrong. Also, it's fair to point out that Jews were enslaved for thousands of years; far longer than American blacks.

In Jamaica Blacks are a 95% majority. There is no racism. There is classism to be sure. But, as a rule people study and work hard. Why do I bring this up? Because most Jamaican blacks who live here in America have wonderful middle-class lives despite the color of their skin.

If we're ever going to solve this issue, we must have honest discussion. We must ask the tough questions. Why is it that we still have the NAACP Awards on TV? I mean....the Oscars are open to all races as are the Emmys, the Globes, MTV Awards and every other major entertainment award. In fact, blacks won many of the big ones this year and years past. So why do we need and permit a show that is openly discriminitory? Imagine the outrage if we wanted to televise the Jewish Entertainment Awards.

Where was Al Sharpton when Isaah Washington was calling his co-star a "faggot"? He was at the NAACP Awards when they gave Washington the nod for best actor. This double standard is part of the problem. It's dishonest and not helpful.

[Guest Untouchable Chino]

amen DADE

[Guest RzO]

another great point

in history jews have been persecuted more than any other race, and they have made it to become a HUGE part of the world we live in. im an italian from NY, most of the people i grew up with are jewish and to this day i have always had a strong connection and respect for them(and any other group that overcomes a hurdle, no matter what color, religion, etc)

this further helps my point above, that although challenging, people can get what they want, sure some will have to do double the work but if the means justify the ends then the effort was worthy, no matter how hard it was

its like the football player who didn't go in the first round when he should of, but 10 years later he is recognized as one of the best, (montana, marino, et all, perhaps maybe brady quinn will be added to this list, heh) just a familiar analogy at the moment

[Guest pod]

The NAACP was founded in part by a white Jewish lawyer, no less.

[Guest HouseJunkie]

They say that if blacks were living in Germany, genocide would have never happen, at least not to the Jews.

[Guest JustDade]

Part of the problem is discussions like this one. Can one honestly make the argument that all these poor people need is a little help? I'm not sure any more.

Take for example the people who got the houses from HH and then robbed me. As I said, it was not a single "bad seed", rather an organized effort involving the entire families of three of the dwellings. They got as much help as could be imagined. They decided within three weeks that their best move was a robbery of their neighbors. Where was the voice of reason? Did anyone suggest that their actions could lead to less funding for others to receive the same help? Were they concerned that they would be viewed as undeserving?

Even the Bible says that the Lord helps those who help themselves. Why should I help those who seek to harm me and steal from me?

Why do I not have to lock my car doors when I drive through Little Havana but I do when I drive through Overtown? According to Tech, I should not drive through there at all and if I do anything that happens is my own fault.

Why does Hillary Clinton have twice the percentage of black votes that Barak Obama does. Am I crazy or is he a much more credible and admirable leader than Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson? Yet blacks say he's "too white."

Why do poor Cubans keep their neighborhoods clean and Overtown is kept filthy by the residents?

Food for thought

[V. Barbarino]

You know what sucks about poverty in Miami, last summer, some crazy amount of little kids died of gang violence, and all they do is have a march, yet on 60 mins blacks talk about how they don't "snitch".... something is seriously wrong with these people, and it's so common the media doesn't cover it. breaks my heart that kids died like that, but what can I do? build them a house? will that solve the problem? no...

I like guys like Starbury, he took a problem of the inner city and solved it!

[Guest endymion]

Dade, you seem to believe that you should be able to immunize yourself against crime through good deeds. Or that Karu & Y's Target spree somehow should act as a talisman against them being robbed even though they're smack in the middle of a high-crime neighborhood.

That's the notion that I was referring to when I said that you would all call me an idiot if I moved in next to PS14 and then ran around thinking that handing out dollar bills to homeless people would immunize me against my car getting stolen.

The question of why one poor neighborhood has higher crime than another is definitely interesting.

[Guest RzO]

cubans have always been a responsible group in the history of our country.

perhaps because in their culture they have escaped an institution that persecuted them in a fascist manner, to seek a better life here. they are very new to this country as well in retrospect and there genealogy portrays this.

the latter has revenge instilled in them dating back to the slave days, and although not all are like this (very important), there is still an exacerbating factor within the community.

food for thought made a little clearer perhaps?

[Guest JMT]

Dade, you seem to believe that you should be able to immunize yourself against crime through good deeds.

the office was robbed by the very same people he helped build houses for. the issue isn't karma, it's basic decency.

[Guest Buck White]

I like guys like Starbury

What inner city problem did Stephon Marbury solve ? ??? ??? ???

[Guest JustDade]

Dade, you seem to believe that you should be able to immunize yourself against crime through good deeds. Or that Karu & Y's Target spree somehow should act as a talisman against them being robbed even though they're smack in the middle of a high-crime neighborhood.

That's the notion that I was referring to when I said that you would all call me an idiot if I moved in next to PS14 and then ran around thinking that handing out dollar bills to homeless people would immunize me against my car getting stolen.

The question of why one poor neighborhood has higher crime than another is definitely interesting.

Actually, what I believe is that we were doing good things in that neighborhood. I believe that those good things should have been recognized by the good people in the area. Those good people should have rallied around us in an effort to get more money to flow into their community...making it better for all. Again.....helping those who help themselves.

Instead I was made to feel like a fool for trying to help. I was made to feel like my hard-earned money was wasted. I was made to feel like giving to this cause was a waste of time. But worst of all....others, who may be deserving, will not be helped by me because of their actions.

I forgot to mention that Nocturnal paid for the party to celebrate the opening of the new houses and we all attemded. I believe that should have been enough to immunize us from being robbed by those particular people.

[V. Barbarino]

I like guys like Starbury

What inner city problem did Stephon Marbury solve ? ??? ??? ???

Starbury and Bitten Collections

In 2006, the chain announced its partnership with New York Knicks' point guard Stephon Marbury, a joint venture in which the chain would produce Marbury's Starbury Collection, a 50-item line of discount clothing including lifestyle apparel, athletic apparel, and sneakers. The centerpiece of the line is the Starbury One, a basketball sneaker that retails for $14.98. Marbury, who developed and endorsed the line, has pledged to wear the sneakers during the entire 2006-2007 NBA season to prove their quality, a promise to which he has so far kept.[2]

In March 2007 the company announced that Chicago Bulls center and 4-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace will endorse the Starbury brand, wearing Starburys during all his games and debuting his own Big Ben Starbury sneaker in the 2007-08 NBA season. Additionally, Sarah Jessica Parker announced that she is launching her own fashion line, Bitten, in partnership with discount clothing chain Steve & Barry's.[3] The line, which will feature hundreds of clothing items and accessories under $20, will be launching on June 7th, 2007.[4]

A shoe guru from some college, cut his shoe down the center along with lebrons, he found they are exactly the same, yet one is 150 and one is 15 bucks, the parents are excited because all the kids are buying them like hot cakes and they don't have to shell out 150 bucks to be cool. in the inner city, the guy is a hero.

[Guest pod]

Dade wasn't handing out $5 to the local bum to "watch" his car. He donated thousands of dollars in money and labor to build up some of those homes. And then, less than a month later, those same people that he helped, stole from the business he was helping to build at the time, which with the amount of effort he put into it, might as well have been his own. Of course he's gonna be angry and demand changes.

There's an old saying "A liberal is a conservative who has just been arrested, a conservative is a liberal that has just been robbed..."

In this case, Dade was very liberal in his giving, and it got thrown back into his face in a very personal fashion.

[Guest addictedtospace]

cubans have always been a responsible group in the history of our country.

perhaps because in their culture they have escaped an institution that persecuted them in a fascist manner, to seek a better life here. they are very new to this country as well in retrospect and there genealogy portrays this.

the latter has revenge instilled in them dating back to the slave days, and although not all are like this (very important), there is still an exacerbating factor within the community.

food for thought made a little clearer perhaps?

Revenge or justification?

I would like to know how many of these "displaced" people can say who Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Denmark Vessey, Dred Scott, Rosa Parks or Dubois were? What was Brown vs. The Board of Education. If the injustice done to you was so great then I would use this anger to move ahead and persevere.

[Guest RzO]

cubans have always been a responsible group in the history of our country.

perhaps because in their culture they have escaped an institution that persecuted them in a fascist manner, to seek a better life here. they are very new to this country as well in retrospect and there genealogy portrays this.

the latter has revenge instilled in them dating back to the slave days, and although not all are like this (very important), there is still an exacerbating factor within the community.

food for thought made a little clearer perhaps?

Revenge or justification?

I would like to know how many of these "displaced" people can say who Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Denmark Vessey, Dred Scott, Rosa Parks or Dubois were? What was Brown vs. The Board of Education. If the injustice done to you was so great then I would use this anger to move ahead and persevere.

i agree 100%, just presenting a point that is still debated to this day, not saying it is right or wrong as that is for people to judge on their own

[Guest endymion]

I forgot to mention that Nocturnal paid for the party to celebrate the opening of the new houses and we all attemded. I believe that should have been enough to immunize us from being robbed by those particular people.

Well yes, okay that's true.

I don't know what Habitat for Humanity can do about it other than what they already do. The structure of the organization is the living embodiment of helping those who help themselves. I always thought that only building houses for people who pay for them was that. Your story illustrates a different side of it, but what liability does Habitat have for your robbery? You think that they should have done background checks when they selected the families? These are families from very rough areas, so a Habitat house is like a halfway house. It's not utopia, it's just the next step up.

If it comes down to Karu & Y versus Habitat for Humanity like Barbarino says then I know which side I'm on. There are enough night clubs already. There are not enough affordable homes.