Randy Dunlap is a plump man with thinning white hair, large round glasses, and a down-home Alabama, “Yeah, buddy” speaking style not generally heard among the glut of polished South Florida politicos. It’s become a shtick for Dunlap, making him something of a foil for his 12-year incumbent rival: reserved,…
Charlie Moretto’s off-white mansion on Millionaire’s Row in Lighthouse Point would have been suitable for Al Capone. Nestled along the Intracoastal Waterway, the 7,042-square-foot estate opens onto azure seas and million-dollar yachts. Inside the home, bright-white tiles and pearl walls shine like gems amid the tasteful, earth-toned furniture. Above an…
Six Feet Over Stratton digs up the goods: I just read “D.O.A. Delivery” by Jeff Stratton (July 29) and had to write. When I picked up this issue of New Times, the cover bothered me, and I seriously doubted I’d read the story. I was too busy thinking that, as…
All Stars Sports Bar (2201 W. Sample Rd., Deerfield Beach) is decked out with red felt pool tables, a ping-pong table, a small corner stage, and every warm and cozy trapping necessary for a good time. Located in a nondescript shopping center, the place serves a variety of imports on…
In a lawsuit filed against the South Florida Business Journal in May, a former reporter alleges the publication, part of a national 41-newspaper chain, has drastically inflated circulation numbers to increase advertising revenues. If true, the significance of such a revelation won’t be lost on those who have watched the…
The shimmering circus that is Times Square oozes neon fingers through the front glass of ESPN Zone, a restaurant in which people watch 14 large televisions while they dine — and one small screen when they urinate. In a second-floor skybox overlooking this den of excess on an early July…
Gregorio Ruiz froze, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of discovery. He listened to the footsteps crunch on the gravel outside as the guard walked the length of the motionless freight train. The only light in the musty boxcar filtered in through narrow slits hacked out with hatchets by the…
Swingin’ on the River Call him Wild Olson: I LOVED Wyatt Olson’s August 5 article “Wild and Dirty.” It is great to learn more of the local history of this area. This is exactly the kind of local flavor and story that I am interested in reading. Please write another…
On a sweltering afternoon in late June, about a dozen young men and women have pulled the bows of two small motorboats onto a wild ribbon of shore on the New River called Swing Rope Bend. The sterns bob in the river, stirred by the wake of passing yachts. A…
New Times is not posting Jeff Stratton’s August 5 story “Too Many Grams” on its website because a photo contained in it was published in error. Pynk Pages publisher Ralph Teetor sent the wrong photo and then erroneously confirmed its accuracy. Moreover, “Sara” is not Suzanne Lutz’s nickname. We regret…
Fat Cat’s (320 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale) is trying to close down at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, when people standing in the dense crowd on the sidewalk out front start moving in unexpected directions, like ants pouring from a flooded anthill. First, the cops drag off a young,…
Lori Parrish is everywhere. The inimitable Broward County commissioner, a candidate for the $148,000-per-year property appraiser sinecure, has been mentioned eight times in the past two weeks in the Sun-Sentinel. A website, floridapropertytaxappeals.com, links to a glowing, 18-page biography complete with pics of the commish in pigtails. And her campaign…
“If you get busted for drugs over there, you’re in for the hassle of your life.” — ominous, 1970s-era U.S. Public Service Announcement Last month in Istanbul, two Broward County women made history when they were arrested in what is reportedly Turkey’s biggest drug bust ever. The incident has gone…
Kiss Has Class Mick Jagger Too Funky for You, Bucko? I’m a few years older than Geoff Harkness, who wrote the July 29 story, “Army of Old.” I was in fifth grade in 1979. The same Kiss-mania raged when I went to school. I wasn’t so hip to the pop…
Jennifer Van Bergen opens the door to her tenth-floor apartment on Hallandale Beach, a law review article in her hand and eyeglasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She looks up, squinting. “Have we met before?” she asks, standing about 25 feet from a balcony that overlooks the Atlantic…
Some sadistic soul has placed South Florida’s sun directly overhead and cranked up the heat to the “July” notch, brutalizing the small Lake Worth apartment where Gidget Gein sleeps and paints. A single window-mounted air conditioner valiantly cools the small bedroom. All day, Gein has worked alone in the stuffy,…
Affluence is besieging South Florida’s cities. Five thousand mostly upscale condos and apartments recently began filling up in downtown Fort Liquordale. Almost as many are planned or poised to open in West Palm Beach. Hollywood, desperate to catch up, last week agreed to give a developer $350 million to build…
Wearing all-black, flowing garments, red-haired Maureen Reilly looked like a would-be high priestess as she addressed the Hollywood City Commission last week. But she went by another title: The Sludge Queen. Reilly flew from Canada at the invitation of Schwing Bioset, the sewage company that was lobbying to keep a…
It’s secretive and rushed — the twin hallmarks of bad government. The tax-subsidized North Broward Hospital District was to unveil a plan to build a 150-bed hospital at Nova Southeastern University in Davie — at a likely cost of more than $100 million — next week during a hastily called…
No Cure for the Hospital District Taxpayers lose: Thank you for advising the public of the matter regarding the abrupt cancellation of our advertising contract with the North Broward Hospital District (“Message Control,” Bob Norman, July 22). The loss of revenue is not an issue to me. What is of…
Hand it to the folks at Gulfstream Park. They’ve never been afraid to tinker with the formula. Unlike some racetrack managers, who wait passively as their elderly core audience does a slow fade to black, the guys at Gulfstream will do almost anything to put butts in the grandstand seats…
Storm clouds have begun collecting over the beach as John Brandon dives into an underwater whirlwind. A quarter-mile from the shore off Fort Pierce, sand, rocks, and air bubbles swirl so wildly around Brandon that the sun nearly disappears. Above him, the blunt force of his ship’s engines aims down…
