2015-0416 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Reeular City Commission Meeting April 16,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach.Florida Public Speakers: Gene Newman; Kevin Thomas Commissioner Aelion noted that commercialization of any event will require a permit,and if that event becomes something of a sale of tickets? City Attorney Ottinot said that the City Code requires that if there are over 50 people then you are required to get a Special Event Permit. With respect to running a business without a Business License, that is a different issue that Code Enforcement can enforce. Commissioner Levin said if someone wanted to have an event in the park then they would be required to get a permit, is the new laneuage limiting. the Condominium Association, is that sufficient, is there anywhere else where it could apply that we are leaving out that we might want? City Attorney Ottinot said no because generally these permits covers everything but a special issue started with condos. Several years ago we tried to address and eliminate the problem, but with respect to parks, obviously on City property we have a better opportunity to govern and ensure public safety versus private property. Mayor Scholl said the rule was that you cannot invite people that don't live in your building to something in the building, and so every time we had even a political event in Winston Towers and we invited the people from the other Towers to attend,we are breaking the rules. What we realized was that we needed to not apply it to just for residential buildings, this is not for commercial buildings or parks or anything else. And so a lot of folks interpreted that to we being really restrictive and the fact is that nobody really understood the City Code. For instance Trump Towers hosted the debate during the campaign which was illegal because of the way our Code is written because our Code says you can't have outside people come to your building for a special event, and so what he realized was that this was an issue. The other thine is Winston Towers has auditoriums in the building and so if local musicians want to put on a show in an auditorium, they cannot invite outsiders to the auditorium. Ultimately under this rule the Condo Association regulates who they want to let in and who they don't want to let in but if they want to invite outsiders, they are not allowed to the way our Code is written today. That is why we put a four-time event limitation on it because ultimately you don't want the Condo Association turning your building into a commercial enterprise. We have got the ability to give folks flexibility when they want to have a special event and invite outsiders and the Condo Association wants to deal with it, then they can do it. Commissioner Levin said then that we would not want this necessarily to apply to say Atlantic Isle. Mayor Scholl said it is not meant for that, it is meant to fix the restriction on residential buildings. If you want to look at other things and propose it to staff in the future, you could but this was meant to fix that restriction on residential buildings. Vice Mayor Gatto said to clarify it is really up to the Condominiums to decide whether they would allow 1, 2, 3. 4 or 0 events, and Mayor Scholl and City Attorney Ottinot said that is correct. Vice Mayor Gatto said we have had a situation in our Condo, just to give an example, when there was a band playing charging people money to come and hear them, they were not a bona fide business and so they were not paying taxes on an income,on top of that we didn't have the parking capacity to deal with all the people that came from other buildings and other areas, and a lot of the residents got very upset. There is a group that would aeainst something like this and so she does understand that you are opening it up but again it is up to the Condo Board to specifically agree with this or not according to their docs. City Attorney Ottinot said that is correct. Mayor Scholl said if the Condo Board 17