Up a Creek With The Creek 

To the Members of the Miami Beach Planning Board:

I am Gary Knight. I live at the Riviera Condominium at 2401 Collins Avenue. I strongly urge that the Planning Board not approve any conditional use for outdoor/open air entertainment at a venue proximate to neighboring residential properties, based on my personal experience which I outline below.
I live on the twelfth floor of the Riviera Condominium facing Collins Avenue. For the past three and one half years, the citizen residents of the Riviera along with our residential neighbors in Roney Palace, the Helen Mar, the Mantell, and the several smaller apartment buildings north of 23rd Street on Flamingo have endured loud music from parties held on the pool deck at the former Waterside Inn at 2360 Collins even though we are several hundred feet away across the canal and Collins Avenue from 2360 Collins. From 1999 to October, 2002 the Waterside Inn was called Banana Bungalow; it is now called The Creek. I have lived at 2401 Collins since August of 1994; prior to 1999, operated as the Waterside Inn, the property in question posed no problem in terms of noise for its neighbors. 

At no time has Banana Bungalow or The Creek applied for or obtained a conditional use permit for outdoor entertainment. Instead, operating outside the law and in violation of the County's noise ordinance, especially Section 21-28, section (b), the location has persistently held parties on the pool deck and the neighborhood residents have persistently called both the police and code enforcement complaining that the noise prohibits our sleep, let alone our peace, quiet and comfort. In fact, The Creek, in its own literature, describes itself as a "sun drenched pool deck by day, rhythmic hideaway at night" where its guests in its cabana rooms which open onto its pool deck are advised as follows: " we should give fair warning that the pool deck is also surrounded by our sound system so it can be a little noisy at times, but for the most part we usually turn the music down around midnight."

I invite any of you to join me in my condominium when these illegal parties are held to experience directly how loud such noise can be as it carries away from the pool deck site and up and across the street to my twelfth floor condo. When we moved here in 1994 and for five years thereafter we had no neighbors operating in such a manner as to deprive us of our right to quietly enjoy our property.

Please do not further spread this plague of outdoor/open air noise further on Miami Beach. Outdoor and open-air entertainment that disturbs the peace, quiet and comfort of neighboring residential should not be approved.


Sincerely,
Gary Knight
 

 Thanks For The Back Up 

Hello Mr. Weinstein:

I have not had an opportunity to thank you for your support and kind words before and during the recent Art Deco Weekend article [“Art Deco Weekend,” published in January 9.]  I am an enthusiastic reader of your column and always find your observations interesting and usually right on point.

We are very grateful that you chose to rise to defend the efforts of our band of volunteers in your column right before the festival. Thanks very much and kindest regards.

Michael D. Kinerk
Chairman, Miami Design Preservation League