|
 Louis Puig
God of Clubland
When Club Space owner Louis Puig has trouble with the authorities,
he really has trouble with the authorities and, unfortunately for
them, the authorities have some trouble of their own.
His after-hours nightclub gave the downtown club district the shot
of adrenaline it needed to become, well, the downtown club
district, and he even bounced back from a well-publicized 2003 DEA
raid. At the time, Puig told the Miami Herald that its bad
coverage of the issue was one reason he decided to shut down the
Space34 warehouse site. The club eventually reopened as Space.
He later reopened Club Spin on
Washington Avenue in South Beach in 2005, and launched Space
neighbor Park West in 2006.
Then, last year, Puig’s questionable arrest led to allegations of
corruption in the Miami Police Department after nightlife Web site
cooljunkie.com broke the news of his arrest on March 18.
Puig’s attorney, former state prosecutor Alex Fox, got the
trumped-up noise violations charges dropped, and a Miami Police
officer who spoke to the SunPost about the department’s
role in the scandal later became the target of department
retaliation; after more than one reprimand, Miami PD filed a
complaint about the officer with the city’s Civilian Investigative
Panel, the agency charged with investigating allegations of
misconduct against Miami Police officers.
Puig’s downtown clubland has also been at the forefront of
Miami’s outdoor advertising controversy. As with most political
movers and shakers, Puig has also donated to the recent
re-election campaigns of Miami Commissioners Tomas Regalado and
Marc Sarnoff.
No one knows what the headline-grabbing club mogul will do next,
but for the sake of any honest police officers out there, let’s
hope it doesn’t involve jail time.
|
.JPG)
