Key Biscayne files additional suit over Miami boat show
After failing to block this year’s Miami International Boat Show, the village of Key Biscayne has filed a new lawsuit to try to keep it from coming back.
Earlier this week, the village sued Miami-Dade County, claiming the county violated its development rules when approving the boat show for Miami Marine Stadium Park and Basin, the Miami Herald reported.
This is the third lawsuit filed by the village in an attempt to block the show. Its suit against the city of Miami is still pending, while a lawsuit filed against NMMA was dismissed by a judge late last year.
NMMA was not able to comment on the suit Friday, a spokesperson said.
According to the paper, the village’s new suit says the area is designated by the county for “parks and recreation” use and the show violates that designation as a commercial event. With the show being held at the Miami Marine Stadium site, the public is excluded from using the area, the suit says.
Key Biscayne Mayor Mayra Peña Lindsay told the paper that there is no need for the event to use public waterfront: “There are many, many venues in Miami-Dade County where they would do extremely well,” she said.
The show moved to Virginia Key this year because of long-term construction planned for its previous home at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Boat show organizers have repeatedly said that no other venue in Miami was large enough to handle the entire show.
“Any other locations that we used would have required the show to be broken up amongst two or three other locations,” NMMA president Thom Dammrich said last fall. “And I don’t mean broken up like it was where we have almost everything in the convention center and we had boats over at Sea Isle. It would have been boats in one location, accessories in one location, engines in one location, in-water boats at another location.”
Mayor Lindsay said “..no need for the event to use public waterfront”. Really?
The National Marine Manufacturers Association (who produces the Miami Int’l Boat Show) deserves a great deal of credit for putting on an excellent event. The NMMA’s premise of having customers park & ride to the show by water taxi, or bus, resulted in the elimination of traffic snarls. The show also brings hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy, with a significant portion of attendees coming from out of the country. Boat Show attendees commented that they liked the new show layout that was more centralized. Our company also had a great event and saw first hand, that the show was a good neighbor to Key Biscayne. Since the NMMA has complied with all environmental considerations and received the State permitting, including the Army Corps of Engineers, it is beyond me why Key Biscayne continues to be litigious in an attempt to relocate the show.
Sail on, let the show stay where it is.
First of all, it appeared that the only members of the public who were displaced by the boat show were the graffiti artists.
Second, it is only a week. Suck it up Key Biscayne. The rest of us Floridians who are inconvenienced by Bike Week, Speed Week, Disney World, etc. know it is for the greater good. Take a vacation and it’ll be over when you get home.
Traffic and parking was horrendous but there really is no other location in Miami that can accommodate this event. I lived in KB and had to endure tbe tennis fiasco but that is tbe price we paid for tbe luxury of living on an island.
I give the NMMA very high marks for producing a first class boat show. They applied for and followed the permitting process to the letter of the law. The Florida marine industry should form a committee to investigate how to defeat Mayor Lindsay in the next election held in Key Biscayne, that may keep her to busy to litigate against next years Miami Boat Show.