Cigarette Racing Homeless?
 

Who is BS'ing who here.......

Speedboat maker needs a home, quickly
BY DAVID OVALLE AND TANYA WRAGG
dovalle@herald.com

When longtime boat manufacturer Cigarette Racing got kicked out of Aventura last year, the company thought it had found a home in Hialeah Gardens.

City officials in this small Northwest Miami-Dade city pushed hard for an 87,000-foot plant, built specifically to manufacture the company's slim, speedy watercraft. Despite permitting problems and suspicious residents, the facility has nearly been completed.

Except that manufacturing is not allowed in Hialeah Gardens. Anywhere.

WRONG WORDING?

Now, Cigarette Racing is threatening to sue Hialeah Gardens, asserting that Mayor Yioset De La Cruz misled the company and tried to skirt restrictions by labeling the facility as an ''assembly'' plant.

But De La Cruz maintains the company told the city from the beginning that it planned to assemble, not manufacture, its boats.

When the company offered to compromise and manufacture its molds and cut fiberglass strips elsewhere, the city's zoning department balked at granting Cigarette an occupational license.

Instead, the department suggested that the company get a ''special-use permit,'' which would involve an application process that Cigarette considers too lengthy.

Now, Cigarette needs to find a home, quickly. The 100-person company must leave Aventura by June 30.

At a Hialeah Gardens City Council meeting earlier this month, Cigarette's president handed out photos of the mayor at the factory's groundbreaking holding a plaque that reads ``Cigarette Racing LLC Manufacturing Facility.''

''Your city inspected and approved these installations. Now the city claims that it did not know that Cigarette manufactures boats,'' Skip Braver told the City Council on Tuesday. ``[Hialeah Gardens] has caused Cigarette Racing to suffer millions of dollars in damages, which we fully intend to collect from your city.''

To the amusement of city activists, De La Cruz did not show up at the meeting until after Braver and company officials had left.

De La Cruz says the company misled the city.

''We were always told that the parts were manufactured outside the facility and assembled in their facility,'' he said two weeks ago in a written statement to The Herald.

''It is their responsibility to follow our code and to research what is required by the city,'' De La Cruz wrote. ``The Cigarette Company has the responsibility of meeting our requirements.''

PROBLEMS STARTED

Cigarette's problems began in March 2002 when Aventura, hungry for more high-end condominiums, rezoned the waterfront peninsula at Northeast 188th Street for residential use. Cigarette, along with several other boating companies, were forced out of ``Thunderboat Alley.''

Company officials said they were ready to build a facility in Medley when they were approached by De La Cruz and his assistant Arturo Ruiz Jr. -- whose father has worked for Cigarette for more than 20 years. Hialeah Gardens officials introduced the complex's builder, the Maco Group, to Cigarette.

In September 2002, Ruiz Jr. toured Cigarette's Aventura plant, where workers fashion about 85 custom-made boats each year.

That month, a panel of Hialeah Gardens department heads -- including planning and zoning director Mirtha González -- approved the factory as an addition to an 18-unit warehouse complex brokered by Hialeah City Council President Julio Robaina. The plan called for Maco to sell the facility to Cigarette upon completion.

Cigarette and Maco officials say that because of Hialeah Gardens' assurances, they assumed that the proper permits would be issued and that the city was indeed allowed to have manufacturing.

According to plans approved by the city, the building includes ''mold'' and ''lamination'' facilities.

By March, The Herald reported that the plant was almost complete. The article contained comments from the mayor describing the facility as an assembly plant, adding that it wouldn't be used for manufacturing.

That troubled Braver, who, in the ''spirit of compromise,'' said he offered to manufacture some parts outside the Hialeah Gardens plant.

The president of the Maco Group, Carlos A. Martínez, was equally upset.

''I'm stuck with a $5 million building,'' he said.

[ June 17, 2003, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: JohnS ]

Re: Cigarette Racing Homeless?
 

That's an amazing story. Sounds like my home town.

Re: Cigarette Racing Homeless?
 

I am sure Cigarette can move into the old Mako/Seacraft factory in Miami! I heard that Miami was pissed when they found out that Mako was moving to NC.

Re: Cigarette Racing Homeless?
 

Ed,
They can't move in there, Mako still hasn't left and they have to be out of the building they are in by the 30th of this month. Tracker Boats really never gave the city to offer them some incentives to stay down here. Tracker has other things on their minds that they have not disclosed.

After reading this article, I spoke to s few different poeple I know down here and they are all of the same opinion. Someone was trying to pull a fast one and slip it in but got caught and now they are all pointing fingers which makes them all look very stupid. Covering all the butts I guess. For them to apporve the permits and the fact that they toured the original location shows right there that they knew exactly what was going on. The fact that one of the guys fathers works for Cigarette is another thing. Problem I see is, is anything in writing or was it all done with a handshake and a promise. The area that they would be going into is not major residential. I do not see the problem.

I could bet that some political donations would help move some things along!!!!