City Commission - Special Meeting - Mar 31, 2026

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the special meeting of the Delray Beach City Commission this Tuesday March 31st. If the clerk please call the roll. Deputy

Vice Mayor Margaret. Here. Commissioner Malika. Here. Commissioner Casale. Here. Vice Mayor Burns. Here. Mayor Carney. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you very much.

Okay we have two items on the agenda. The first are public comments and the second is the resolution to address the matters related to subculture. In public comments if the if the public comments is not related to the subculture question those those comments are going to be made when we take that agenda item up. These are just general comments that you might have as members of the public to the City Commission on on matters of the agenda and non agenda items but not not the item dealing with subculture. So if there's anyone here from the public wishing to address the Commission please come to the lectern. You will each have three minutes and seeing none that's not surprising. That portion of public comments is closed. Great. We are now opening this up to the the resolution 64-26. If I could get the City Attorney's Office to please read the

resolution into the record. Do you want to read the quasi-judicial votes first or?

I would let you read it but we can do that now if you want. This is going to be a quasi-judicial hearing which means that everybody who testifies is going to be under oath. These are going to be limited in the amount of time you can speak. The applicant will have the City will present its case. The applicant will present its case. Then it will be opened up to public comment. There will be the applicant and the City Commission will have the opportunity to cross-examine if necessary. It will then come to the Commission for determination. If there are any members here wishing to speak on this agenda item please stand and be sworn by the clerk. Otherwise you will not be able to testify.

Mr. NMD, as a notary of the State of Florida, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Let me read you the rules as it relates to quasi-judicial hearings. This hearing shall be conducted in accordance with the quasi-judicial rules. The applicant in the City shall be allowed 15 minutes each to present their case. The public shall be allowed to speak for three minutes each or a maximum of six minutes if the person represents an organization or a group of people who are present but agreeing not to speak. The City Commission and staff and the applicant may be allowed to cross-examine a witness. The City or the applicant will be allowed to offer rebuttal testimony. The decision to approve or deny an application or appeal may not be legally made upon personal views as to whether a project is a good project or not, nor may a decision be based on the number of citizens who support or oppose a particular project. The law requires that all decisions must be made on the basis of whether the project meets the requirements of law, the comprehensive plan, and the land development regulations. If you could now just read the resolution, then please enter the file into the record.

Sure. This is resolution number 6426, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Delray Beach, Florida, requiring additional off-street parking spaces for the property located at 302 Northeast 6th Avenue, as more particularly described herein, pursuant to Section 4.6.9 of the land development regulations, requiring 44 spaces based on the use of the property, providing an effective date, and for other purposes.

If I could ask staff to please just enter the project file into the record.

So, Mayor, this is a little bit different today.

Because I'm going to be still asking for ex parte.

So there is no file application for the record. This is a City-initiated matter. Right. And so the only thing that the City would introduce into the record are all the documents that were listed as a backup materials on the agenda.

And the testimony. Okay, fine. Are there any ex parte communications? Commissioner Casale?

Oh, my. Probably a lot. I think that said it all. I know. Oh, my. I sat down with Mr. Mayo at his place of business. I believe there were one or two other individuals there. I don't recall at this point in time who they were. Mr. Rose has contacted me in the past, and he sends us emails, which probably are somewhere on our server. I'm trying to think. Mr. Rich Wagon. I've spoken to him. And, you know, a lot of people in the city have asked questions. I can't say specifically all the names, but a fair amount of ex parte. Thank you.

Quasi-judicial is really just interesting. If the applicant has spoken to you, not citizens and things like that, they are not considered part of the quasi-judicial?

It's anybody who's spoken to the members of the commission about this specific matter. So about this reevaluation.

Okay, that's fine. Then you're right. Commissioner Burns.

Yes, I haven't spoken recently, but I spoke to Mr. Mayo a year or so ago about this matter because it's been ongoing for a while. I've spoken to Mr. Rose a couple months ago regarding just clarity on an email that was sent and then the emails that we've received. And that's the Facebook polls driving by, looking at the situation myself.

Great. Commissioner Marker.

Yeah, I've had some conversations with Mr. Mayo not recently. I've had some conversations with Mr. Rose, and I've had some conversations with Mr. Richwagon. Great. Commissioner Malika.

I spoke with Mr. Mayo and, of course, drive by the property several times.

That's it. I have not spoken to Mr. Mayo in a while, but I have spoken to Mr. Rose, again, not in a while, but a month ago, and Mr. Richwagon the same. I've had numerous, lots of correspondence on my email, the city email address, so I want to include all those as part of my ex parte communications. But other than that, none. So, if the, are we, the city's going to go first on this? Yes, sir. To the city.

Thank you. Lynn Gillen, city attorney. This is kind of nice over here, just letting you all know. So, we're here today for a re-evaluation of the off-street parking requirements for the property located at 302 Northeast 6th Street, which we all know is the subculture coffee, the Delray Beach location. So, I wanted to start off preliminarily to explain that nobody wants to be here. I don't want to speak for the commission, but I know you don't want to be here. I can speak for city staff. We don't want to be here, and I'm pretty sure Mr. Mayo doesn't want to be here either. This is a very uncomfortable position. What this hearing is about, it's not about shutting down subculture. It's not about, nobody's taken any licenses away from subculture. Nobody has done anything in this matter except ask subculture to come into compliance with the terms and conditions of their approvals from the city. This is not about seeking additional in-lieu payments from subculture because, frankly, under our current rules, that's not even something that can be afforded to Mr. Mayo. This really is strictly about compliance and finding ways to achieve that compliance. So, we're going to go back to 2023, and I can tell you that none of you were sitting on the commission at that time with that decision.

With which decision?

Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Burns was. Excuse me. Yes. My apologies. You're right.

I was here. You're right. I apologize. And I voted in favor. You did. I was actually in the audience.

So, back in 2023, Mr. Mayo had recently purchased the property and had wanted to open a subculture location there, had met with the city, and realized that based on the use of the property that he was going to propose, he did not have sufficient parking. And so, he needed to seek parking relief from the city. And we've seen these motions. And we've seen these motions all the time. And they're in lieu of parking requests, where essentially, he only had eight on-site parking spaces, and he needed five additional parking spaces. So, he went before the city commission, and he made his request, quasi-judicial proceeding, just like today. Everybody was under oath. And under oath, he told you, he told the commission, a previous commission, that he was going to be a majority of a grab-and-go restaurant. People would stay there 15 minutes or less. People would grab their coffee and go. And it was the majority of his business based on prior locations, other locations that he had. And so, based on those representations, his request was approved. So, after he received his in lieu of parking, he came back to the city, and he submitted what's called a zoning certificate of use. And a zoning certificate of use is a formal document that lets staff know exactly what your proposal is, and that's where they put the conditions and let the applicant know what is and what is not permitted. And he submitted this document back in March of 2024. It was approved about a month later, about three and a half weeks later. And what's interesting about this document, why I put it up here, is because the document tells you that he's going to open up a restaurant. He kind of called it a cafe with pre-made goods. But there's that circle that I have there where it says other. And if he was going to operate as what he's doing today, this community cultural gathering place, that would have been the place to put that. That would have been the place to tell staff, yes, I'm a cafe, but I also want to do these events. I want to host events where people can sit, talk politics, commune together, be a community together. That would have been the place to put that, because had he put that on there, there would have been further analysis done to ensure that the in-lieu parking requests that he made, the spaces that he paid for, and the on-site parking that he had was sufficient. And he didn't. And so he proposed a counter-service restaurant with 20 interseats, and he was approved for a restaurant. And so he had a grand opening on her about July 24th, 2024. So what's been going on here since he opened in July 2024? I don't need to tell this commission about all the parking issues that are told to you by residents, by neighbors, and by, you know, community business owners in the community. And I do apologize. I think I skipped a slide, because I think this slide is important. I skipped this slide, and this slide is important. So we all know the subculture location. We know that it's located on North Federal at the corner of 3rd and 6th. And I have two circles on this slide. And the two circles are two businesses that are in very close proximity to subculture. And one is a law office belonging to Daniel Rose, and another one is Rich Wagon's Bicycles, owned by Albert Rich Wagon's. And I'm going to tell the commission today that these are the two predominant individuals, businesses, that are complaining about the parking. That's a known fact. You know, Sergeant Sarancini is here today. He's going to talk about the parking complaints that we've received. But I think it's important to understand that while the complaints are coming predominantly from these two areas, they're also the two businesses that are closest to subculture that are going to feel the impacts of these events that are being hosted there that are not permitted. So post-July 2024, that's where we have these parking concerns. And I do have Matthew Sarancini. He's a sergeant. Sergeant Sarancini, can you state your name for the record, please?

Yes, it's Sergeant Matt Sarancini with the Thorey Beach Police Department. I'm the traffic sergeant.

And how long have you been in that position?

About nine years now.

So are you familiar with subculture?

Yes.

And as part of your duties and responsibilities with the city, were you assigned to review some of the complaints that the city was receiving concerning this business?

Yeah, at one time where the traffic unit was involved with going over there and, you know, frequently checking on the business, providing extra patrols to see if anyone was parking in the no parking sign area or in the safety zone. Those were the two areas we were really looking at. Rich Wagons and Mr. Rose's business across the street, they had complained at times that patrons would go park in their parking lots, but I've never witnessed them.

So the parking issues that Mr. Rose was complaining about, you were never able to witness them?

I did write some citations for people who parked in front of the no parking signs on 3rd Street.

Okay. But as far as private property goes, are you able to cite those?

No.

So even though this looks, for lack of a better word, messy, that's not something that the city can patrol, correct?

No, it's a private business, so they could contract a tow company, and if someone was parked in their business, they could tow the vehicle.

Okay. But what the city is concerned with is the impacts to the roadway.

Okay.

Is that correct?

Was there impacts to the roadway as a result of the traffic from subculture?

What you're looking at is the impacts to the roadway, the parking impacts to the roadway. And did you find there to be any type of a dangerous situation that was created?

No. Outside of blatantly parking in front of a no parking sign, it wasn't obstructing traffic on 3rd Street. Pedestrians can walk past it. Two-way traffic was able to be achieved. It wasn't blocking any sight lines to the intersection of 3rd Street and Northeast 6th Avenue where it would cause a crash.

So is it fair to say that the parking problems were basically within the boundaries of the property of subculture?

Yes.

I don't want anything further. Sergeant Sarancini has to go to another event. Is it okay if council cross-examines him and then he can be dismissed?

Yes. So if you have leave to go to a question.

Sergeant Sarancini, when you drive down Federal Highway immediately to the north of subculture, do you see a big Murphy's truck there, a big truck there that's blocking that area of the parking there?

Yes. You're talking about the bottom left of the photo, correct?

Right.

Yes.

Now, if you were to drive another five or six spaces, would you see another box truck from the same sign company there?

I think it's there at times, maybe a McLaren signs truck.

And if you were to drive even two steps or two spaces north of that, would there be even a third box truck that's there?

I don't know if there's another box truck.

Now, are you familiar with that area enough to know to drive by there and see something there familiar?

Yes.

How long do you think those trucks have been in those spots?

They're there frequently.

When you say they're frequently, would it be fair to say that one truck right there hasn't moved for a year?

I couldn't tell you that. I don't know. You know, I pass by periodically, so it could leave in the amount of time that I haven't returned to the area. Certainly possible.

Every time that you drove by, was that truck there?

I don't recall.

Now, if those trucks were removed, how many more additional spaces would there be on Federal Highway there?

I don't know the amount of spaces. The next block up would be 4th Street, but those vehicles wouldn't block any sight lines to 4th Street.

And the truck there, is that taking up two spots or one?

I'm not sure. Even the size of that truck, probably two spots.

Okay. And the truck in front of it, was that taking up two spots also?

It's a box truck, so I would imagine it would.

And the third truck that's parked on the northernmost part of that, that's got the name of the sign company there, would also that be taking up a spot?

Are you talking about the box truck? Yeah. That would take up two spots.

Okay. And if those spots were free, would that free up an additional eight spots on Federal Highway there?

I would imagine so. I'm not even sure that all those are spots. I think there's a safety zone over there as well. Okay.

Nothing further. Thank you, Sergeant.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sergeant. Do you have any other questions for the Sergeant?

Does the Commission have any questions?

Does the Commission have any questions for the Sergeant? No.

I would question one thing. Okay. I believe the gentleman, I believe you said you've seen two trucks there, but you've not necessarily seen the third he referenced.

I didn't see the third. Correct.

So then if there were parking spaces, it wouldn't be six or eight parking spaces. It would potentially be four. Correct. If there's two trucks. Thank you.

Okay. Any other members of the Commission wishing to address the Sergeant? Sergeant, thank you for taking the time today.

Can I have one more question, please?

You may.

What would be the prohibition against spots backing out of the parking spaces on subcultures parking lot? Is there a prohibition for them backing out?

I'm not quite sure what the question is. Backing out from the parking lot onto Federal Highway? Yes. I don't believe they have to back out onto Federal Highway.

But if they did, would that be prohibited under the parking code or the traffic code? Would that be obstruction?

I wouldn't call it obstruction, no. They were forced to do so. Sir?

I'm sorry. Have there been any accidents at this location that you responded to or you're aware of?

There's been two reported crashes in the parking lot of subculture. One was an alleged crash, and it was proven that the crash did not occur. The other one was just a basic parking lot crash, minor damage. And as far as Northeast 6th Avenue goes, around that intersection, there was four of the crashes in the year 2025. But not related to the business. It's just improper lane changes and left-hand turns from the right lane. Very common for Northeast 6th Avenue, especially the first four blocks.

And any other intersection on that same stretch?

Yeah, for a second. Okay. Thank you very much, Sergeant. Thank you very much, Sergeant. You are dismissed. All right. Thank you.

Can I continue?

If the city attorney could continue, please. Thank you.

So, Anthea's going to help me with some of these slides. I want to ask you some questions, Anthea. Could you state your name for the record, please?

Sure. Anthea Genutis, Development Services Director.

Okay. So, Anthea, I want to show you the picture on the top right up there. This doesn't work, so. So, on the top right right there, that vehicle, is that in a parking space? The white truck in the top right? The painted truck.

Top left. Top left. Sorry. It's been a long time. Your other right. The other right.

The sun's right. That one. Yes, it appears.

Does that appear to be a vehicle that's owned by subculture?

Yes.

And why do you think that? Based on the color. So, would subculture parking their own vehicles create a parking issue, in your opinion?

So, parking requirements include staff. However, I think at the in-lieu discussion about having the amount of parking, there was some indication that staff would be parked elsewhere.

Because how many on-site parking spaces are there?

There are eight. Well, there's supposed to be eight, correct? There's supposed to be eight, yes.

And why am I saying supposed?

Because the parking lot is not adequately striped at this time, so it's difficult to count.

And that car on the bottom left, is that car properly parked? No, it appears to be on the sidewalk. And you would agree with me that Mr. Mayo can only control so much, correct? I do agree with you. But you would also agree with me that if this parking were properly striped and marked, that would help the situation and mitigate the situation with the parking concerns that we're repeatedly hearing about? Yes. So, I'm showing you a building permit. Do you recognize this building permit or a screenshot from it?

I do recognize this building permit.

And tell us what this building permit is.

So, as part of trying to ameliorate some of the issues, in May of 2025, a hardscaping permit was submitted to reconfigure and stripe the parking lot.

Has that permit been closed? No. Has the work been completed? No. How long, can you estimate how long that permit's been open?

According to the time elapsed on the slide, it's been open 210 days. The way that the permit software works, it's like a tennis match. The applicant has the ball. They can make changes, upload edits. Then it goes over to staff. They can't touch it anymore. We can make comments. And then we send the tennis ball back to them to make changes. According to the screenshot, the tennis ball has been with the applicant for 179 days and 13 and a half hours at the time the screenshot was taken, waiting for them to upload changes in response to city comments.

And the city has been seeking this parking lot to be striped. Can I have additional questions? Please continue. Yes. Thank you. The city's been seeking to have this parking lot corrected for some time now, correct? Correct. And in fact, the city staff had met with Mr. Mayo, I believe, on site to discuss some of these issues?

Yes. There is a multi-department meeting on site to discuss the issues.

And was work ever done on this parking lot?

Not through permits.

So?

Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Let's put it that way.

And again, this permit remains open as we sit here today.

Can I ask a question? Can we ask as we go for the audience's benefit instead of circling back? Is that okay since, Mayor?

It's recognized.

May have you recognized?

Yes.

Thank you. Is it appropriate to ask while we're going? Because I think it will help the audience a little bit and us as well. Would that be okay?

It's up to you. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I wanted to have it as productive as possible. So if you feel that that would be more productive, would you feel that's a more productive? That's fine. Okay. Sure. If that's fine. So we're going to have to be a little flexible on the time because people are going to be using everybody else's time here. Thank you. I'll be quick.

The parking, the reason why it needs to be striped is one, to identify the spaces, but also to identify handicapped, correct?

Correct.

And that should have been done pretty much on day one. Would you argue 2022 or whenever the, or 2023 when the approval went through, the parking, there should have been a plan to identify the parking spaces at that point. Because it's not just the 170 days that the permit's been open. That's a common requirement. Correct.

So I don't, you can answer that.

Thank you.

Okay. So because this was an adaptive reuse, they went into a building that was already there. He didn't build this building. He didn't build this parking lot. There were, you know, there was existing striping. It gets faded. It changes over time. When they opened, we made sure that, and you can see in the bottom right, that there's a handicap sign and that it was painted blue. However, there are other deficiencies related to the type of striping, the demarcating the path that somebody in a wheelchair would take to the front door, things like that, that, you know, are typically achieved through the hardscape permit that's on the screen to make sure it's okay. These types of things, though, when it's an existing building, you know, it's just working with them. Okay.

Thank you. But at some point, when these problems began to get bigger and bigger, staff met with Mr. Mayo and talked about these things. And frankly, when you look at how the parking is being conducted, because there's no lines, as the business owner, you would want to ensure that your customers have a safe parking area so that we can avoid accidents and fender benders and things like that. The parking situation, from the city's perspective, is actually making the impacts of whatever's going on inside the building worse. And that's why we're having the spillage onto the sidewalk, onto private property spaces and things like that. And so from our standpoint, everything that you're going to see here today is just part of this making a problem just bigger and bigger and bigger without having some type of correction.

Good. Please continue.

Thank you. So since July 2024, we've had unapproved events. We're all familiar with the city's special events policy. And from this standpoint of this being a grab-and-go restaurant with only eight on-site spaces, any event on this property, whether you have an open mic night, whether you have a latte art competition, there's going to be an impact. And you're probably going to hear today that these events are small. There's only 18 to 20 people that are in attendance. However, we have to look at each on a case-by-case basis and understand that even though it might only be 18 to 20 people that are in attendance, when you only have eight on-site spaces, two might be utilized by your members of your staff. Now you have less and less spaces available to host these types of events. The ticketed events are easy. Those are not permitted. You know, there is nothing about a ticketed event that's customary use with a grab-and-go restaurant. So those are the easy ones. But these other events, while they are good for the community, while they do bring people together, because of the location of the site, that's why we're having these issues. That's why we're here before you today. If these events weren't going on, the impacts would probably not be felt as much, and we wouldn't have to be issuing notices of violation, code hearings, and things like that, and having to have a re-evaluation of their parking requirement. So, staff did meet with Mr. Mayor, we just talked about that, and in response, he did a request to amend. So, we talked about the Zoning Certificate of Use, which is that legal document that tells you what you can and cannot do on your property. So, he did come back, and he wanted to have a community cultural gathering place with weekly entertainment, including chess, live art, painting, poetry, open mic, karaoke, latte art, coffee cupping classes, guest training, and classes. Staff reviewed it, reviewed the location of the property, and made a denial of it. Staff said, no, you can't do this. You can't do this, because where you're located, it cannot withstand the impacts of these events. You are a grab-and-go coffee shop. That's what you're approved for. And unfortunately, these events, despite the fact that they've been denied, do continue. So, what is the current approval? The current approval is a restaurant with 41 seats. He has to meet the definition of a restaurant that's listed in the code, and he has to have a seating and floor plan that is consistent and remains the same during all hours of operation. So, what does that mean? It means that we can't set it up, you know, with chairs to watch a latte art competition and take away all the tables and put out 50 seats. That we can't do, because we're not operating as a restaurant. Those are the things. And Mr. Mayo, in fairness, wanted the city to give him a list. Here's the list. Tell me what I can and cannot do. And it's not that staff was being difficult. It's not that staff didn't want to work with him. It's that we can't, you can't look at these things myopically and say, yes, no, maybe yes, no. You can't do that. You have to look. In the same way we have the special events process, where people come in, they submit their application, we review it as a team, and we tell them, this is what you need for a year event. You are going to need police. You are going to need fire. That's essentially what would need to be done, because we would have to look at the events that he's looking to host, the impacts of those events, and determine whether or not they can, the site can sufficiently mitigate the impacts of whatever is going to happen on that day. So why are we here? We're here because subculture is operating more like a meeting place than a grab-and-go. And when we talk about the 2023 hearing for the in-loop parking, there was a conversation about the turnover of the parking spaces. A grab-and-go necessarily implies that the spaces are going to turn over, that people are going to run in, stay there for 10 minutes or less, grab their coffee, grab their baked goods, and leave. And that's not what's happening. And if you look at the definition of a meeting place in our code, it's going to give you examples, assembly halls, meeting rooms, cultural facilities. That's what a meeting place is in our code. And what you're going to determine today is, is he operating more like that or more like the grab-and-go restaurant that he told the commission back in 2023? So Mr. Mayo did submit a change.org petition, which got a lot of signatures. But in the change.org petition, he tells us that he always wanted it to be more than a grab-and-go restaurant, that he envisions a place where people were going to gather, they were going to discuss local issues, promote local art and artists. And that's okay, but not in this location because he can't support that type of environment. The parking is just not sufficient for that. So what is the actual use? Is it a restaurant or is it a meeting place? If you go on social media, you're going to see things like people use it as their office workspace. People use it as a cozy place to hang out and drink their coffee. And if he were in another location that had the sufficient parking, those things would probably not be a problem. We probably would not be here today because that is something that happens at a coffee place. But that's not what he pitched. That's not what he can support. So why does this designation matter? And it matters because we're going to talk about the parking space differential. Is it 13 spaces for this restaurant? Or is it really 44 spaces because he's having a meeting place that's a cultural gathering spot for the community? And if you look at the calculations, he would be at a deficit of 31 spaces if you went and said, he's a meeting place, we're going to impose the maximum number of spaces to support that use. So you're probably going to hear that the city is engaging in selective enforcement and we're not. There is a difference. And the difference is the location of subculture. If you look at our parking map, and this was taken from the city's website, and you look at Atlantic Avenue, all those P's reflect all of the different parking options that are on the app. On street spaces, public and private garages, public and private lots. And you can see there's a plethora of them on there. When you look at where subculture is, there's nothing there. So while you're going to hear that places on the app are doing these things and it's not fair, the reason why it's not impacted is because of the options for parking that are located in those areas that just doesn't exist where subculture is located. So the code is going to guide your decision making today. The first portion of the code that's going to help you is, how can we even be here? How can this commission reevaluate someone's parking requirements? And under 1.4, it tells us that you have the ability to take whatever action is necessary to prevent or remedy a violation. And I think that when you look at the previous slides, we've proven to you, we've provided to you competent, substantial evidence of violations. And they don't have to go rise to the level of a code violation. They're just simple violations of the city's code. If you look at off-street parking regulations, section 4.6.9, that's going to tell you that it's Mr. Mayo's responsibility to provide and maintain adequate off-street parking. So when we look at that parking lot, is he maintaining adequate off-street parking? The answer is no, because if it were properly striped, he could probably get the sufficient number of spaces on there. If he didn't have his employees parking there, he would probably have sufficient parking for his customers on there. But it just exacerbates an already difficult situation. And then the last one is really the main one. And so this off-street parking regulation, subsection B.1, talks about when can you assess more parking? And that's when you're going to look at the nature of the use. You're going to ask yourselves, has there been an enlargement of the use? Remember, we're going to start off with a grab-and-go. Has that grab-and-go use been enlarged by hosting these events, these hack nights, these pop-up shops, these open mic nights? Does that enlarge a use so as to create an issue with parking? The next consideration for the commission is, has there been a change in the manner in which the use is conducted? So again, has there been a change in the grab-and-go? Is he acting like a community cultural gathering spot that is a meeting place that's going to affect the parking requirement and require him to provide more? So when we talk about how has the use been conducted, we're going to look at the types of events that he's had. We've had open mic nights. We've had latte art competitions. Are these consistent with a majority of customers staying 15 minutes or less? Are these an enlargement of an approved use that was given to him back in 2023? Is a trivia night or a co-working coffee shop, is that consistent with grab-and-go? Are those uses enlarging the approved use of a grab-and-go that only required 13 parking spaces? And then it has hack night, these monthly workshops, pop-up shops. Mr. Mayo is going to tell you that he hasn't had events in over a year. There's actually one scheduled for later this week, April 4th, where there's going to be a little boutique. And I just can't stress this more strongly. These events are not bad events. It's just that the impacts of the community make them a challenge. They make it difficult for the neighbors. And while I understand it's essentially two people that are the brunt of the complaints, they're the two that are closest to the restaurant, which are going to feel it the most out of anybody else. So we've talked about your considerations. You're going to consider if there was an enlargement of the approved use or if there was a change in the manner in which the use was conducted. And if the answer to either one of those is yes, then what the commission's going to need to do today is determine the nature of the use, is it a meeting place, and then assess the appropriate parking requirement based on the use. So I did put some options on here to help guide the conversation. The first option is we maintain the status quo. We don't do anything. Understanding that these impacts are there and that they're felt throughout the small vicinity of the neighborhood. You can determine that the use is consistent with a meeting place. And at that point, you would assess whatever parking space you determine is appropriate, whatever number of parking spaces you deem is appropriate. And then you're going to obviously credit the 13 spaces that he was already essentially grandfathered in. You could require, as part of the additional parking spaces, require what's called a tri-party off-site parking agreement. And what that agreement is, it's between Mr. Mayo, the city, and whoever's going to lease are licensed spaces to him. It would require the city to be a party, so it would come back before the city commission for your approval. And it would say that if that agreement doesn't work out, then he's not going to be able to open until he's able to supply the requisite parking that was no longer afforded. So it keeps the city involved. It makes the city aware of what's going on. And if there's an issue with the parking, it would have to come back to you for approval. And then the last thing is that you can require subculture to mitigate the impacts of their parking issues. Pave and stripe the parking lot. Maybe they should have to hire a parking attendant to oversee the parking lot during peak hours of operation. Maybe they have to require their employees to park off-site and have them cease from advertising events on-site. So some of these things were, for example, the requiring employees to park off-site, they were discussed in the past. They were never officially memorialized in the approval. We would memorialize them today. So I would just ask the commission to truly determine what this use is, determine what the impacts of the use is. And once you do that, however you formulate your decision, it should serve to mitigate the impacts of the use as well as provide sufficient parking so that we don't have to come back here again.

City is concluded?

Yes.

Okay.

I would like to call Ms. Genotes as a witness just to answer some questions.

Sure. We can cross now. Sure.

Ms. Genotes, right now the parking lot that was re-striped by Mr. Mayo outside of his permit, he re-striped it according to what was there when it was approved?

I don't know that, actually, because any re-striping, just as a public service announcement, requires an apartment because we're going to make you double-stripe. So I know that when they first opened, we had a complaint that the handicap sign was no longer up. They had been doing interior renovations, and we stopped by and asked them to put that back up. So, but it's a non-conforming parking lot, absolutely.

And it's a non-conforming parking lot. It can come into compliance?

It can, but I do want to say this is, we're dealing with feet in inches. There's only so much. He can make it better, but, you know, it is a tight site, and it's existing. So we're trying to adjust something that is limited by its existing condition.

And as far as its existing condition goes, if it can be fixed, does it need a new zoning designation, or can it be fixed? One of the two.

So, no, it doesn't change the use for if he is going to stripe the lot and achieve the eight spaces that are to be on site. Okay.

And under Chapter 4.69, a meeting room, are there any other meeting rooms in the City of Delray Beach that you know of? I don't remember looking that up.

I mean, offhand, no, we do have clubs, but I don't remember how the parking works for that. I mean, places of assembly and other things. I can't think of one off the top of my head. I'm sorry.

And if this was a meeting space, according to the code, would the city approve subculture as a meeting place? Or would they say no, because at this point, if it's considered a meeting place, it's essentially zoned out of business, correct? Correct. It's a restaurant. Okay. And in terms of a permit, are you familiar with the permit process for a special event?

It's not my department, but we participate as a reviewer, and then it goes before DSMG. So, yes, at that aspect. There's a CTAC process I don't personally participate in.

If subculture was to ask for a permit, would that cost essentially $3,400 for each special event?

If you don't know the question, you can answer it. I don't know.

I mean, I don't know the cost. Okay.

Unless that's conditionally used.

Did the city record the complaints for this, for the parking complaints?

I have a document. I don't know if it's the only document. Okay.

And in your document, does it show how many people complained about subculture?

I was provided a list of complaints to the police department between January 1st, 2024 and April 27th, 2025, where there were 52 calls for various issues.

And of those calls, how many of them were a single person? Of those calls, of those 52, how many were instigated by one single person? At least half, or about half. Okay. So is that a question of there's an actual complaint about parking or just an angry neighbor?

Well, your neighbor can be angry because of the parking. Understood.

So it's, you know. And when you went to go look at the spot, I asked the police officer this, if there were some spots on Federal Highway that could have been open. How many spots did you count that could have been open that were there?

That could have been open that had cars in them?

Yes. Or that had trucks in them, specifically. Okay.

Well, I've been driving by in anticipation of this workshop more frequently than usual. And the last one that I saw was taking, was closest to the landscape island, and it was taking one and about a third of the parking space in front of it. And so it's, at least one truck is regularly there. And it's been there for about a year? I don't know. It's there when I drive by. I've noticed it.

And if those trucks were removed, that would provide an additional five spaces, approximately?

The intention of on-street parking is that it turns over to serve multiple businesses, that it's not a permanent parking lot for your business.

And this is Federal Highway. This is a commercial district. Okay. And when someone buys in-lieu parking. Yes. So does the city invest that money for a parking garage so they don't have the same problems like on Atlantic Avenue?

So it's not necessarily for a garage, but it could be. The in-lieu parking payments go into an account, and they can be used for parking, bicycle, or pedestrian infrastructure that supports other modes of transportation, but largely it is used for parking. It could be. We have parking lots as well throughout the city, things like that. We use to improve parking.

And how much did Subculture pay for its in-lieu parking with the city of Delray Beach?

I have to look at the backup. It should be in the resume. Sorry. Okay. So on April 18, 2023, the city commission approved in-lieu parking requests for five parking spaces in the amount of $118,300.

Was there, at that time when it was approved, was there a plan by the city to build a parking garage in the vicinity of Subculture? No, not a garage. Has there been any attempt by the city to build any relief parking for this area?

We work with our developers to achieve on-street parking adjacent to development, and that is right now the largest source of sort of public parking that's coming in in the area.

Has there been any specific working with people for Subculture's benefit on behalf of that money for the in-lieu parking? No, that money is in the in-lieu parking account. And if Subculture was to require 44 spaces, how many in-lieu spaces would that actually require them?

There's a limitation on the percentage of a business's required parking that can be achieved through in-lieu, so there's no way to do the 44 spaces as an in-lieu payment. Okay. Okay, and thank you.

I have nothing further. I would like to call Rodney Mayo. Rodney, could you state your full name? Rodney Mayo.

And I just need to clarify, is this part of your presentation? I mean, that's fine if you want to do this, but I just need to know, keep keeping your allotted time, that's all. It's some flexibility, but yes, thank you.

Thank you. First things first, do you want to continue with your business at Subculture in Delray Beach?

I can't, I don't know. I don't want to go through this, and I don't see it ever ending. Even if we are allowed to stay and we work the parking, I think I'll be attacked constantly by my neighbor, or two neighbors, one neighbor really, actually, that one's been okay. And most of this commission, it seems like there's a Vendetta against me.

Enough of that. All right. So let's be clear, the city has alleged that this is a continuing problem, not the exception to the rule. So let's be clear, the events that were put up there by the city, were those three separate events, or were those events that occurred every month or whatever else?

I will show you exactly. They're pulling up events from right here. November 2025 is the one they use. May 2025 and May 2025. We stopped all events when we appealed the magistrate theory. We haven't had an event in over, since those dates, since May 25. And why not? Because we were waiting for our appeal from the magistrate to say if we are allowed to do these events or not. So we were waiting for the appeal. So, but in the meantime, we stopped all events.

And since you stopped all events, have you had any code enforcement leveled against you?

No, and we have zero code violations currently on the portal. Zero.

So what the city was using as evidence of a pattern is actually three cases that are under appeal right now?

Not exactly. Not those specific ones. But those are events previous to our magistrate hearing. They're over, you know, they're almost, they're over a year old. And we stopped all those events because we didn't want to go through this until we had a ruling from a higher court.

And right now, as this stands, is there any available parking around you?

Yes, I counted on this slide. You will see, I was hoping to go through this in order.

Let's, let's take it back. Let's go through this in order. Let's start with the first. Let's do your presentation. Let's do it in order.

Oh, so I'll just answer your questions here. Options. The, the two yellow lines, red is subculture. That is a one block walking radius. I know nobody in Delray walks, but that 32 spots are available on north, going north and going south within one block of subculture. I will, you can go back on Google, which I did, because you can trace Google and you can see how many available spots are there. That truck has been there for 18 months or more. That's as far back as Google goes. The one in front of it has been there for two years, not come and go stationary. I would, I heard that that truck finally got towed out because it was not operational. So yes, there are options. Two hour limit on federal would solve a lot of these problems. But unfortunately, that truck right there is the closest to parking spots to subculture. If you just go to the left of that truck that has not moved for 18 months, that's subculture. So they're taking up two of our prime spots.

Now, is that something, is that something that subculture can move or change?

No, actually we've tried to been, I love McLaren signs. So we've been very, you know, not really, but we have called. But it took actually calling the police department to follow up with the parking because it got red tagged two months ago. The red tag was ripped off. It never moved. Anyway.

Let's get to your next slide.

So up here, hold on. So grab and go. I just think that that, I've been thrown under the bus so many times about grab and go. Let's get to the facts though.

From your accounting, how much of your business is grab and go?

So right here, the facts. Can we zoom in? I don't think we can. I think we can. Hold on. Let's give it a shot. Here we go. Look at that. Look at that. I don't know if we can. Counselor, your eyes may be better than mine. Yeah, right. So I just did the last four months and you will see this is November. Two ways to figure calculate it. By quantity, you'll see here quantity versus price. By grab and go quantity, we're at 63% grab and go. Price, we're at 59%. I'll skip to January.

How did you determine what's grab and go and what's for the inside restaurant?

It's wrong. And if you look right here, it says dine-in, take-out. So every time, because we serve dine-in, we serve in porcelain cups so people can have a better experience. And to go, it goes in a paper cup. And also when they call out the order, they know if they're sitting there, if they have time, they can bring the coffee to them as opposed. So they always ring it in. They get a name. And right after they enter name, it says, is this dine-in or take-out? And then I'll just go down to the bottom.

So was that true when you first applied for your zoning? Was it grab and go when you were first applied?

That is our – so I knew I wasn't going to be believed, so this is last Saturday. We did a security video camera. Unfortunately, I had to pay somebody five hours to count every person coming in and coming out. This is from Saturday. So I'll just play it. It's really quick, but you will see the actual numbers. Top is total people entering the residence, the business. The yellow is people that are in and out of there in less than 15 minutes. The red number are people that stayed more than an hour. And this is from a period of 7 a.m. to noon, and this was just this past Saturday. And I'll provide the backup security if anyone needs it. It'll just take 10 more seconds, but I think it's important. It's important for the poor guy that had to count all these people.

And so we're clear, what are the hours of operation of subculture?

Well, since we stopped doing any activities, we cut – we used to be open until midnight, and we cut it back to 8 p.m. So we are now, for the last nine months, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sorry, 10 p.m., guys. I stand corrected. But this is pretty – and this actually pretty much matches our records because, you know, somebody – sometimes somebody will say I'm going to go out. So 76 total customers, 56 were grab-and-go, 18 stayed there, 77. So 23 percent grab-and-go. So I feel like what I stated at the commission was accurate. Continue going through this?

Yes, let's go to the next step.

Okay. So we did a record search. We did FOIA requests to find out who any complainants were. I've asked this commission before because I've heard commissioners say the entire neighborhood. I actually had the neighbor to Daniel Rose call me and say he left subcultures, never had a parking issue, and he is right next door to Daniel Rose. Anyway, the only one we found with complaints, which were over 120 documented complaints, was from Daniel Rose only, none from Mr. Richwagon. So I've asked this commission, could you please tell me, because I would like to reach out to those people. I'd like to, you know, if somebody's upset with this, I think I can work with them one-on-one, but nobody has given me that information. They just use these broad, sweeping statements, the neighborhood. I think somebody else is going to go talk. They went around the neighborhood and actually gave them a pamphlet within, like, a one block. I think they're going to talk later. It's one person. It's Daniel Rose. I'm sorry, and just on the 40, I'll get to the next one, but I just wish this is where, I hope we have time to play the actual commission and my actual words. This is what makes you guys wonder why I'm so upset. This is it. Right here, because my eyes are failing me, but just so I can read this. This is what the staff says I said. They're just pick up morning coffee, they're afternoon coffee, majority stay less than 15 minutes to pick up coffee. And do you guys know that was half of the sentence? I feel that that's unfair. I feel that that is accusatory. Because right after that, without a break, I say, but we encourage our customers to stay. We offer free Wi-Fi. We want them to sit and work. We want students. That was a but, but nobody in two years has bothered to add that but. They stop it right there. The city and you commission condemn me. Anyway, parking calculations, it's very obvious that 44 is to shut us down. I was happy of that, Anthea said. 44 is impossible. So what you're asking for, you say you want to work with us. You say you want to keep us open. You say you don't want to close us down. But you're giving us a demand for 44 spaces that your head of zoning just said is impossible. So really look inward. Does that make any sense? I'm giving you one option. Get 43 spaces, which is impossible. That's your only option. Period. So I'm not supposed to believe that you really want to close this down. You could have come back with five. I know. All right. This is just surprise the heck out of me. This, you're throwing my words and distorting them. You are saying that because I say coffee to be more, subconscious coffee to be more than a great cup of coffee. Does a croissant fall in that? Does a piece of cake fall in that? Does you want to come in there and play a game of chess fall in that?

So that's what I'm saying. What is the difference between a corporate coffee place like Starbucks and yours?

We have way better coffee. Okay. We don't burn our coffee.

But is there a culture that you're also trying to convey there? Like you're not a corporate culture. You're there for the neighborhood. Yeah, we are. You're a local business.

I open up subculture and a lot of the independent, the third wave of coffee wasn't an answer to sub to Starbucks was to create an environment that non-alcoholic, give kids a place to hang out, to study, art, music, culture. If you go back to the 1400s, the history of coffee shops, I know, Mayor, you said you know coffee shops since the 70s, but I disagree with you. You do not. Because if you don't think poetry and Bob Dylan was started. Yeah, the coffee shop. I know. It's hard for me to focus. Anyway, this is – I spoke to two commissioners that were on. Next slide. Okay. All right. I won't go there. We went through the options. We abided by your ruling. You said no more events. We did that. Hate to tell you, but this is another restaurant that does – if you look what they do, they do comedy. They do open mic. They do trivia. I would love to ask Anthea, what is the difference between this restaurant and ours? And I – you would probably – I don't know, can I ask that? No.

We're going to – because I've given – I've given more than equal time, so you need to wrap this up so we can get to public comment.

BTR – so I came prepared. That location has the exact same license we do. Full-service restaurant, 16 to 50 persons. They've been doing all those events for God knows how long. So – and they continue to do them. We spoke about this. No compromise. Just suspicious activity. You know, our license was – our license right now is currently not valid. So currently the code could come and shut us down. But what happened, if you see here, it's a little odd. We were approved. And see what this says right here. Description. This account was renewed in error. This just appeared one month ago. Before this, we were valid license, active, up until September this year. I kept checking. Somebody changes. Now it says it was approved in error. I don't know who would do that. And then I have a bunch of – hold on. Moving. And then just a couple things on in-lieu parking, which I'm sure this is what was signed. I'm sure Anthea is very – I have some – in-lieu as far as what – how strong the agreement is. If you go – it's all discombobulated. My presentation was an hour and 20 minutes. So to do it, I was not aware we only have 15 minutes. So I do have – I'll send this to everybody. Oh, we've eclipsed the 15.

I've been very generous. We've eclipsed the 15.

No, I know, but I timed your – I timed the other one. It was 25 minutes. Your presentation, when it was 15, you gave – it was 25 minutes.

With question interruptions, yes. Okay. 25 minutes. We're nowhere near the 25. I'm not in the argument business.

If you were to apply for a special permit for each time a poetry reading was there, how much would it cost you?

I haven't researched it, but I was told in our meeting with Attorney Gellin that it was about a $3,200 to $3,400 process for any event. And she said, well, by the time we go through that, so that's what we – if it was approved.

If you had that meeting, would you be able to limit the amount of people to the maximum amount of people that the fire code says you're allowed to have?

You lost me there. I'm sorry.

If you were to have any sort of extra meeting like that or a special event, would you limit it to the amount of people you're allowed to have in your restaurant? Yes. According to the occupancy given to you by the fire department?

Yes.

Okay, so let me be clear. The city might be mad at Roddy. Roddy might be mad at the city, but I feel like this can work. I feel like a lot of great bands hate each other, but I feel like we can make great music. This is not a situation that needs to end today with an assembly hall. This is a situation I think that can be fixed. We can work with this, but there is going to be some issues with parking. That is entirely inherent on Federal Highway. I think once those trucks are moved and he restripes his lot, we can make this work.

Thank you. By the way, for the record, I deducted the time that both of you interfaced with the police officer, which is why the time was not the 25 minutes as suggested by Mr. Mayo. Did you want to cross-examine at all before we get to public comment? If you want me to do it now, I'm sorry. Did you comment?

Yes, I wanted to ask a question. I don't know if this is the appropriate time to ask. Can I get a clarification on the amount for applicant for a special event?

A special event permit, what is a special event permit cost?

$3,400 for each special event?

So I think that that's a different, I'm not sure what special event is, but the 3,000-something number is conditional use, which had been on the table at one point when there were outside activities happening, that that would have been a mechanism for that. Or if we wanted to do a one-time approval for, like, generally having the uses instead of, like, I'm doing this one on May 2nd and this one on June 6th.

I don't think the special event application costs that kind of money. I think that's for a conditional use, which is what would have been an ANTHIA's purview. But for a special event application, that would not have been the fee for it.

And so which one would Mr. Mayo have to apply for, the special event application or the conditional use one?

So when we last discussed this, you know, he's kind of in this hybrid area because he does host a lot of events. And so they stopped losing that special distinction. And so the idea was, if you're going to continue hosting events on your property, ask for a conditional use to host these events, let the commission evaluate the impacts of your events, and make a decision so that you would know if you're going to need a police, fire, whatever. That was the suggestion that we had, and this was probably over a year ago, because I don't believe that a restaurant that's going to continue to host events every week, which at one point they had daily events, that it loses a special distinction at that point. It's not special. It's just events.

So the conditional use fee, $3,400, whatever it is, would encompass all of the events that he would want to have. Correct. And not each individual event.

Correct. It would give him almost like a master plan for what the commission would envision for him to be able to host those events.

Is that what, like, the Elks do and these others do in their community homes when they have events?

They're different. I think they're a zone CF, so they're different.

I got you. Okay. That's a different thing. All right. In that case, did you have any more cross-examination? You're entitled before we get to?

Sure. I just have a few questions. So, Mr. Mayo, you would agree with me that the grab-and-go designation, those were your words at the April 18, 2023 commission meeting, correct?

Yes, and they're my words today.

And, in fact, at that meeting, you discussed overflow parking with the commission because you recognized that it was going to potentially be an issue, correct?

It's an issue at every one of my businesses, yes, and there were suggestions that were offered.

In fact, you did offer suggestions. One of the suggestions you proffered to the city commission was that you don't allow your employees to park on site, correct?

No, incorrect.

So you never told the commission that on April 18, 2023?

I have the video if you want to play it.

Well, I actually have a transcript I can show it to you.

I will tell you that I said...

Do you have the transcript, John? Because I'm happy to show it to you. No, I have a video. So page 16, it's highlighted right here.

Okay. You mischaracterized it once again. What can I read? I need to read that.

He has to refresh his recollection, then I get it back.

Okay. So can I hold on to this so I can refresh it? Of what I stated, but not what you stated, yes.

So this document states, and I quote, we do not allow our employees to take up customer spaces. Did I read that correctly?

No, you were reading that incorrectly, ma'am. Could you bring that back to me, and I'll bring it to you correctly?

It's okay. I'll just show the commission later.

No, how about you bring it back to me, and I'll read it. I'll read it in person.

John, why don't you read it?

The whole thing. Not snippets. Correctly. We do not allow our employees to take up customer spaces. That's what I just said. No. We'll play it back. You did not say that. And the distinction is customer spaces. You know why? Because we have two employee parking spaces on site. Two. Two stacked, and Anthea, I'm sure, can attest to this. We have two employees. So when I say customers, that doesn't mean that we don't. We have two employee spaces. So when you're insinuating, if one of our employees does not park in our designated customer space, and takes up, yes, of course we do not allow that. I don't park in a customer spot. But that is not, you did not read that correctly. I'm sorry.

In April 18, 2023, did you tell the commission that you were speaking with someone named Rich about possibly obtaining spaces from him for a fee?

Yeah, that's Mr. Richwagon.

And that was Mr. Richwagon, correct?

Yes, yes.

And in fact, at some point, you did have an off-site parking agreement with, I believe, the, it's called putting around?

No, incorrect.

You never paid them, I think, approximately $2,000 to be able to park there?

You said an agreement. What do you mean by an agreement?

Well, did they allow you to use their lot?

A month to month in season. Agreement. And because we were doing these activities, I approached them, and I said, actually, I take that back, I think she called me and said, we're not using this lot, would you like to use this lot for either employees or overflow parking? I said, that would be amazing. Me not taking anything from free, because she was going to offer it to me for free, I'd say, I'd be happy to pay you. So I paid her $1,000 a month on a month-to-month basis. When summer came, and I noticed there was three cars there on average, and I was paying $1,000, and I told her we don't need it anymore, because there was no cars parking there.

Okay. So, but you don't characterize that as an agreement with her?

No, I think a written agreement is saying it, no, because it could have ended at any time. Sure. It was month-to-month. So, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what classifies, but to me, when either party can cancel it in 10 minutes' notice, that's not an agreement. I just offered her money for her spaces.

So you told the commission that you stopped doing any activities, correct?

Correct.

And back in, you tried to amend your zoning certificate of use to add the community cultural language in there, correct?

Incorrect.

You never submitted a document to the city seeking to amend your zoning certificate of use to have a coffee shop with food, art, music, community cultural gathering place with weekly entertainment?

At the instruction of Amy, who approached me after, so the answer is still no. If you want me to explain, I will. But no, that was not my decision. That was Amy's decision that came up to me after the commission workshop and said, I'm going to help you out. What we're going to do, so Daniel Rose has nothing to complain about, is we're going to redo a CZU, and I want you to write every single thing, activity you want. People think I just did this and wrote down 30 things. I wrote down 10. I showed it to Amy. You know what she said? She said, write, is this everything you do? And I said, no, I didn't write down chess and checkers. She goes, write everything down. So that list that you see of 25 things on that list was instructed and said, this is what I should do. Why would I go for a new CZU to get exactly what we were approved for previously? What was the purpose of that?

Okay, but you understand you signed that under oath? There was an affidavit attached to it?

Oh, I submitted it, yes.

You signed it under oath?

Yes, on the recommendation of the staff.

And so, okay.

That's what the staff told me to do. So we get to a public record.

It's a public record.

And so, despite the fact that you were told no to have these events, open mic, karaoke, latte art, you did it anyway, didn't you?

No, since our ruling, we have repealing those. And since that ruling, we have not done any of those.

Since February 24, 2025, when your amended ZCU was denied, your own slide had the day of May 2025. So you did it anyway, didn't you?

It goes a little deeper. Would you like me to explain?

It's a yes or no. You did it anyway, yes or no.

I was told by the city I could do it. So I would say the answer is yes, I did it. But I was told specifically by people of the city that it was okay as long as it wasn't an outside event, that if it was inside, you were okay. I had zoning officials. I had Enrique tell me that. I had Anthea tell me that. And it is on video, if we have time to watch it, it is actually on video. You saying it was sitting up there. You said, referred to it as the problem is his outside events. Correct. You referred to that.

Yes, and as ZCU tells you, you couldn't have those. My question is, are open mic nights and latte art competitions and chess tournaments, are those outdoors? No. Thank you. I don't have anything further, Mayor.

Okay, great. Thank you both very much. We're going to open this meeting up for public comment. Anybody wishing to comment on this application, please come to the lectern. Give your name and address. If you have not been sworn, is there anybody here going to be speaking that has not yet been sworn? Okay, would the clerk please?

I'm sorry. If I could ask that they turn the computer, because some of the comments have a visual. Some of the comments have a visual that I have on my computer, if they could turn it back on my computer.

If possible. That's not procedure. So would the clerk? Anybody wishing to testify, who hasn't been sworn in, please face the clerk, name and address for the, or name and address. Of course. No, no name and address. That's later.

No, it's quasi-judicial. No, they have to be juried.

Okay, go ahead. If you could please, anyone wishing to be heard, please please raise your hand. Here's the clerk.

By the authority vested in me, as a notary of the state of Florida, anywhere or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you all very much.

Now, just as a reminder, the total time given is one hour. Now, while each person can speak for three minutes, understand that to the extent that you're going to be duplicating your talks, at one hour, we cut this off, you know, unlike I do for the applicant in the city. I give them leeway. The public, unfortunately, they're limited to one hour. So, with that in mind, please give your name and address for the record. You will have three minutes.

I won't take up three minutes.

Well, that would be good for everybody behind you.

My name is Jerry Grossman. My address is 3210 Pearson Drive in Delray in Tradewinds Estates, which is fairly close to subculture.

Hold on one second. That is not evidentiary. I'm sorry. That cannot be sitting on the screen. That's not part of your presentation. It's not you, sir. You want me to close the laptop or unplug it? You stand. Yeah, right. You need to.

There you go.

Now, please continue.

That doesn't count against my three minutes, I hope.

I'll be generous. That's a joke.

That's a joke. That's a joke. My name is Jerry Grossman. I live at 3210 Pearson Drive, Tradewinds Estates, Delray Beach. Pretty close to subculture. And I do go to subculture pretty regularly for coffee, so I feel like I have a personal vested interest. I also know Daniel Rose pretty well. He's been my family's lawyer for well over two decades. And this is the first hearing I've been to. And on the one hand, it's impressive at how polite and orderly it is. But there were aspects of it that I'm totally aghast about because it seems like subculture is being prosecuted. It's almost like it's a trial and they've committed some crime. There's absolutely parking issues, no doubt. I personally always park legally. And I don't like the fact that a lot of Florida residents, Delray Beach residents, don't always park legally. But it's an enforcement issue and it is a public parking issue. It's not a crime by subculture. I go to coffee shops all around the world when I travel. I also live in New York. I go to a coffee shop every day. Subculture isn't doing anything that's radically different than other coffee shops do. And if there's anything that they're doing that needs to be refined, the city should be working with them to come up with a solution. The idea that they could possibly be closed down over this is, I'm sorry, to me it's insane. As a resident and a taxpayer and as a customer, that just boggles my mind.

Thank you, sir.

And addressed for the record, you will have three minutes. Mr. Weiss. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Greg Weiss, 1615, is my place of business north Congress in Delray Beach, 33445. Many of you know me. I've been involved in Delray Beach over the past 30 years in many capacities, including Chair of the Chamber of Commerce, Chair of Economic Development for four years, as well as working with the city, CRA, on multiple committees for business purposes. So I just wanted to give a little context for those who may not have known a little bit about my background. Regarding parking, I think that that count was under because I did a drive and a walk up federal, down federal, and I actually counted 40 spots between Atlantic and George Bush. The issue, which was repeated earlier, is 100% correct. I can attest personally, because I've spoken to the city about this, there are more than a dozen trucks and cars that have been placed there in excess of weeks at a time. Not just at box trucks. I'm talking about individual cars. Those are spaces that could absolutely be utilized for the customers of subculture. And that is lack of enforcement on the city's part, just from my perspective. In my viewpoint, again, this is my opinion, Rodney Mayo and subculture are no more responsible for policing outside his space than would Burt Rappaport of Deck 84 be in the Marina District or the cars that are always parked at Northern Trust in the evening. So, you know, I really feel like Rodney, to an extent, is being attacked. You know, someone spoke earlier about selective enforcement. Again, as prior chair and someone who worked to bring a lot of restaurants and businesses to downtown Delray, there is selective enforcement in Delray. I can attest to that. For those of you that were around during the years when we had Taverna Opa here and then when we had Union Sushi here, after 9 o'clock, those were listed as restaurants by the city. They were approved as city. After 9 o'clock, what did they turn into? They turned into nightclubs, 100%. They had stopped serving food to the extent, and you saw the lights, the music, the noise, the people, okay? That went on unabated without any issues from the city. So, yes, I do actually want to put it out there in my belief there is selective enforcement. You know, that's the reality of it. In the spirit of supporting a small business that brings so much to Delray Beach, whether you consider it a restaurant, whether you consider it a meeting space, I go in there three, four days a week, and I see plenty of kids there in our local high schools helping study groups, tutors, seniors gathering there. We need to work together to make sure there's an amicable solution. And then just one last thing, and then I'll let it go. I've occasionally gone to places like Carmela Coffee, as well as one of my other favorites, Coffee District. The Coffee District's been in town 17 years. They do multiple events there. They have been doing multiple events there, and they have never had the same issue that Rodney is having. I thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Boylston. Former Commissioner Boylston, who served the city for six years. Thank you very much.

Good to see you, Mayor. So I'm one of two people in this room that did actually vote on this item. And that's actually why I'm here tonight. I haven't been in this building in two years, after six years of coming in every week. So what drove me to come here today was not my love for coffee. It was because I heard over and over that the commission was misled, and that has been stated several times tonight. No, we weren't. Or no, I wasn't. I'll speak for myself. We knew exactly what we were voting on. Subculture has opened in Delray Beach three times. It's been at three locations. We know what subculture is. My colleagues and I also know what our comprehensive plan says. So when you drive down Federal and you see all those empty spaces all down Federal Highway, some of the cleanest parking spaces until recently, or stacked with dealership cars, or with the trucks that were discussed tonight sitting there, well, why are all those spots there? All you have to do is look at our comprehensive plan. The plan for Federal was to expand these types of uses there for redaptive reuse of old automotive buildings that would turn into gathering places, that would turn into coffee shops and retail. It's all in our comp plan. By the way, Anthea, that's part of our comp plan. That's probably the oldest and needs an update, but I know you're going through a lot to update. But it still says that to this day, so if it's still in our comp plan, then it's accurate to this day, and that's exactly what we looked at. The reason the city invested in all those parking spots down Federal that were unused for so many years or stored trucks for so many years is because we wanted this. It says it. It says it right in the comp plan. And by having those spaces, we are allowed to say yes to in-loop parking. Pineapple Grove used to have in-loop parking. We got rid of it when I was a commissioner because eventually you get to a point where you don't want to let people just pay their way for parking spots. The place got too popular, right? And it's pretty much happening everywhere in Del Rey, but that's what you do to spur development. It worked. Ask yourself this question. Are we here if subculture isn't popular? If their coffee sucks, all right, and they don't have the guitarist who has an Instagram following of 10,000 people, right, are we here? You can't penalize businesses for being successful. And I just want to end with this last quote here. Subculture gatherings are good for the community, and they bring people together. Attorney Jelen. You said that tonight, which is a good quote, and I'm just half kidding. I'm just half kidding with our attorney, but there's a lot more positive to why we're in this room than there is negative. So let's just remind ourselves that we're here because the building is successful. We're here because people like to gather. We're here because we have a coffee shop that is too popular. But if you go back to why we approved it, why we approved the in-lieu parking, it's because of our comprehensive plan.

Thank you very much.

Mayor, the court, Commissioner Boylston, Mayor, Commissioner Boylston, Ryan, can you come back? Can I just ask a question since he's leaving for cross-examination? Oh, boy.

Oh, she's allowed to cross-examine a witness. You knew the rules. Yeah, it's true.

So you are subject to cross-examination? Yes. Just one question. At the end of this hearing, back in 2023, isn't it true that you agreed with Mayor Petrolia that we needed to take another look at our in-lieu parking?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

My name is Julia, or Jules, 33483. Sorry for this because this is the first time I'm- I apologize.

This is actually quasi-judicial, so can you state your full address on the record and your full name, please?

Julia Byron, 1010 Nassau Street, or Delray Beach, 33483. Thank you. This is my first time doing this, so sorry. The only reason that I'm here, and this is the second meeting I've come to because I did come to the last one when it got rescheduled, is because I was born here in 1994. So I have seen the change that has come. I know a lot of people have seen a lot of it. This feels like one of the very few places that feels like Delray. Sorry, I'm nervous, so my voice is shaking. I don't like public speaking. The staff at this place is incredible. The community that gathers there is incredible. You guys talked about marketing at your last city commission meeting. This Delray is not the Delray that I grew up in and that I loved. It's overdeveloped. There's too many people. It feels like Fort Lauderdale at this point. And subculture is one of the tiny little places that allows people to gather. I understand that there's a compliance issue and all that stuff, but like multiple other people have said, it's not a subculture issue. I don't know if you guys have ever been to a coffee shop. Most of them act like grab and go. The only reason this one doesn't look like it is is because people actually like to be there and they like the staff and it's cozy. And a lot of us are remote workers after 2020 and all the things. And there was a million other things I wanted to say, but I got very angry sitting in this meeting because this is insane. These people, for a poem, for a poem, you guys are getting upset that people gathered inside their building. And I understand that, again, you have to decide on what kind of space this is. And I understand that you pointed out all the parking lot on Atlantic Avenue and all that fun stuff. But guess what? There's no fucking parking anywhere in Delray. Sorry, excuse me. There's no parking anywhere in Delray. And I have to go round and round and round to find a spot. And that's fine. But my point is they should not be scrutinized for people actually wanting to be in a place that feels like old Delray. There, again, there's a lot of stuff I'm shaking though. And I can't speak anymore. So sorry. But I just had to say my piece because this seems completely unfair.

Thank you very much.

Howard Richwagon, 298 Northeast 6th Avenue, Delray Beach, Florida, 3343. I want to clarify one comment about the police calls. Yes, Mr. Rose made the number of calls that they said. But I was instructed by the commission at a meeting to text Officer Williams all of my complaints. I made zero calls. I text him from September 5th, 2025 to February 5th, 2026 110 times. And I was instructed to communicate with him via text and not call the PD. So that's missing 110 calls from me. If the owners of subcultures applied one-tenth of their time and energy they have on blaming the neighbors, me and Mr. Rose, in specific, for their noncompliance and lack of parking issues, only to incite their clients to harass, threaten, and give us bad reviews, posting a specific commissioner is corrupt, all while playing the victim, has only made this a much bigger problem. None of the neighbors have ever asked the city to shut down subculture. We send our clients there while they're waiting for their bike repairs. My staff loves coffee. Please stop inciting your followers to harass me, my companies with false negative reviews. Please stop saying we and the city are trying to shut you down. That is a false narrative. That is simply not true. Stay in your lane, the grab-and-go coffee lane. We all need to move forward with our time and energy. I respect and support the commission's decision. I want to thank the police department for its dedication and time for this matter. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Richbiger.

Daniel Rose, 323 Northeast 6th Avenue, 33483. I only have three minutes to debunk all the lies that I've been subjected to by Mr. Mayo. One, I didn't call 180 times. This dangerous rhetoric is also defamatory, saying I had him criminally charged. Comments on social media calling me embezzled or corrupt, posting my address, receiving death threats, receiving nasty text messages. His customers also had a coordinated attack on my Google business where I received over a half dozen negative reviews for a total of eight negative reviews from customers, clients I don't even have. They're never going to be clients of mine. I have a very professional private practice. I put on hold my latest project in order to have safeguards to prevent them from negative reviews. I respect the rules. Here is it, and I want the media to see this. This is a ZCU approval for a PPEC, and you can look that up, prescribed pediatric extended care. This was going to be a facility at my office that was going to take care of fragile children with special needs at no cost to them. Here's the approvals. You can have it. You can look at it at any time. Why couldn't we do it? Well, we're outside the building finalizing how we're going to transport kids that are handicapped because you have vans, and you only have 30 minutes from my center to their location to transport them because some of them are on machines. Lo and behold, a coffee shop customer just drives in and almost knocks us out. I had a guy avoid a tow truck. I tore my meniscus because he tried to hit me with his car because the tow truck he saw in sight. Just this last week, the two weeks, I've had a boat park in front and block my parking lot where I couldn't use it. I had to go park somewhere away from my own office. Customer cars, you've seen the pictures, constantly blocking my space, blocking my ability to back out. So I don't have a PPEC to service these fragile children. So think about the consequences. And then we get into the I've never had special events. You forgot one. The Broken Sound Music nightclub event that you were going to cite him for where he had a nightclub event, and apparently something happened with the paperwork that you only sent him a warning letter. So it continues. But the lies have to stop because they're dangerous, and it only takes one person in this room. That's how dangerous this is. Now, a couple more things I want to go on. Grab and go. There's a really great place I go to call FitFuel Express. We all know where it is. And there's even a coffee shop next door. How come there's no complaints about parking there, right? Because it's grab and go. That's what grab and go is. How many complaints have we had lately about pop stroke? Remember they come in every week? Why? Because pop stroke did something to resolve it. I actually had a time where I was talking to an employee of Mr. Mayo's, tried to resolve the situation a year or so ago. And my office got vandalized twice because of his postings. And the problem is, I said, could you just have someone come outside every 15 minutes and have them not park illegally? Well, that's too much to ask for. So this is on them. At the end of the day, it has to stop. I mean, someone in this room is going to get served with papers. Not today, but it's coming because I'm not going to put up with this anymore. It's dangerous. And the threats to you guys, too, are horrible. I'm sorry I'm out of time, but I think I've stated my piece with everything else. You have everything. But like I said, it's all about honesty. I've never not told the truth. And I'm tired of the gaslighting and the doxing and everything else that goes with it because that's dangerous rhetoric, and that should be taken into account because they're going to come here and play Mr. Nice with you. Oh, we're just nice, friendly people. I don't wish what I've been through the last year and a half. Stop one second. I don't wish. Just give me ten more seconds, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayo.

I don't wish what they did on anyone. And the last thing I leave you, we've been here for 13 years.

Would you like me to have you removed, ma'am? I'm the chair of this meeting. As far as I know, I'm still the chair. I accommodated Mr. Mayo when he wanted to speak extra. I accommodate people when they have something to say. Just one more point.

I can take my mom's time if you want because she's coming up. He's had 22 days since the last hearing, and he's had two years. What has he done to even remotely fix this problem? The answer is absolutely nothing because we're the ones paying to protect our properties. Thank you, Mr. Rose. Thank you for the extra time.

Hi, my name is Cheyenne Murch. I live at 4695 Francis Drive, 33445. His comment already about not having ever said any lies is we have someone that's going to come up that he created a fake Instagram account pretending to be someone that wanted to threaten him. So all of his physical threats that he's sending you are probably from his fake Instagram account. We tracked the VPN back to his email address, which is fraud. He's not allowed to do that. All of his stuff is lies. He says he's only coming after us for parking because he really cares about his business and his children and whatever he's saying. He has called on us health code for having a dog inside, trying to get us shut down for health code. He's called code for having our garbage can a little bit open. He's sued me personally for defamation. He's threatened to expose my OnlyFans as if I didn't expose it myself. If you want the discount code, let me know, brother. He is mentally ill beyond, in my personal opinion, because it's not defamation.

We don't do personal comments here.

I'm disgusting.

I would urge you to stay on point.

Okay, I'll keep going. I'll keep going. Revoke that he tried. Just screamed OnlyFans at me over there. The only person who should be talking is the person at the podium.

It's me.

Thank you.

Please keep this to a minimum.

Okay, just besides him. If Rich Wagon ever calls us, we are very respectful. All my employees are demanded to answer his calls. And if there's a car parked, we announce to the entire restaurant, Silver Honda, please go move it. And it's not that often. They love when people park there. Not Rich Wagon. Honestly, Rich Wagon has called respectful and asked. Someone's parked here. We try to get it moved. That's how the relationships should go. Rose never calls us. He only calls you guys, because nobody really ever parks there. He loves to post the videos on Facebook of a car parking there occasionally. I'm there five days a week. Barely anybody parks there. All of our neighbors know he's crazy not to park there. Keep going. You said we have, that is a photo shoot that we did for our car.

Please direct your comments to the commission. Not to anybody.

Of our employee car parked in the lot. It was a photo shoot. That car is never there. So just move on from that. The pop-up shop is a girl promoting her book while people are standing in line. That's not a special event. Special event is supposed to be using city resources. Everyone says they are driving by, but nobody has cited the three box trucks that have been there for two years. You guys said one year. It hasn't moved in two years. That's unfair targeting to be driving by and only looking at our shop. And then right next to our shop, there's city parking that has been taken up by box trucks for years that would help us. But of course, you don't want to help us, do you? The parking issue has nothing to do with our events. Those ended a year ago. We have parking issue during the day. All of our events were at night. So stopping our events was not because of parking. That's not a huge reason why you don't approve our events. They're because you do not want this positive space because you are dark people. So, okay, I have time. We are majority grab and go. That was true. We did not mislead. We are majority 67% grab and go. Modern Rose is off the app, has five parking spots in a shared space. Glimmer has zero parking spots. Okay, bye.

Thank you very much.

I'm too sure. I don't know if I have to do this.

You have to pull it down so I can hear you a little bit.

It's kind of stuck. It's stuck on the desk.

Do your best. Name and address for the record, please.

Can you start the clock over there, please?

Yes.

Thank you. There has been so much misinformation. Name and address for the moment to us. My name is Leah Escobar from 4512 Parker Avenue in West Palm Beach.

Great. Thank you.

There has been so much misinformation about subculture in these chambers, so much so that we took it upon ourselves to gather every single exchange, every single email, application, permit, every license, every approval, every public request form, every single screenshot from our call logs, news articles, and even social media posts, and gathered it all in this one binder. We took the binder and created an 18-page timeline that spans over six years. This binder has no separate opinions, no points of view, and no alternative truths. This binder has nothing but documented facts. Facts like on March 2nd, 2020, we started meeting with the city about parking. We had another meeting on June 25th, 2021, via Zoom, with City Official Rochelle Sinisgali. On July 19th, 2021. September 21st, 2021. And on November 10th, 2022. Those are five events that took place before 2023. And why is that important? Because the meeting that you guys had with Mr. Mayo, where he presented his coffee shop, mainly as a grab-and-go, but also as somewhere for people to gather, had happened on April 18th of 2023. So he had been dealing and doing his due diligence way before that, because if you know Rodney Mayo, like some of us do for decades, you know that he, if anything, is obsessed with getting his facts straight and doing his due diligence. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Mr. Daniel Rose, because that's why we're really here. The person who holds the record, probably, for coming the most to commission meetings to shut down any culture events in the city and Delray Beach, he's the one person who, according to the city of Delray Beach records, has submitted over half of the complaints about subculture group. Many people don't know that Mr. Rose is so obsessed with Mr. Ronnie Mayo that he took him to court petition in an injunction order against him. And in that hearing, I'll give you the case number if you want it, the judge not only denied his ridiculous petition, but he also ordered Daniel Rose to stop being the city police, to back off from Mr. Mayo, and to leave him and his business alone, something that he has not done. That's your main complainer about subculture. A disgruntled neighbor who wanted to buy the property, but as soon as he saw Rodney Mayo was coming in, he himself took his building off the market because it was for sale. Now, if they really wanted a solution, the neighbors, Mr. Daniel Rose has four parking spaces he probably doesn't use after five o'clock. Mr. Rich Wagon has nine. They've come up here time and time again saying that they were really concerned about public safety. If that was the case, they could have leased those spaces to Mr. Mayo after five o'clock, but didn't. My last thing that I'd like to say on a personal note is that I do believe that Mr. Mayo is due a public and written apology for being misquoted and having led the public to believe that he lied about how he represented subculture. He never, ever said it was just going to be a grab-and-go, and he was constantly misquoted. You should issue him an apology for that and publicly be known. Thank you.

Thank you very much. May I? I'm going to ask the city attorney to, you know, this is a crazy judicial hearing. We have a very, you know, our framework is very limited to what we're looking at here. We're all getting into a lot of really, really extraneous stuff which are not relevant to or helpful to what you're trying to do. So I'm going to ask the city attorney, could you please address what I know you want to address?

Well, I was going to, Ms. Escobar, I'm going to ask you a few questions, okay? Sure. And Ms. Escobar, you were in the meeting that we had with Mr. Mayo, I think it was last week? It was. Okay. And at that meeting, Mr. Mayo ended up leaving the meeting, correct? Correct. And we discussed the fact that there were things that have not been done on this property that could probably ease the situation.

Is that a fair statement? It could be a fair statement, yes. We also discussed how you were not being very nice to him and you seemed to have it out for him.

Well, I get it. Mr. Mayo doesn't like to hear something, so that's fair. But at the end of the day, you've had a lot of contact with city staff, haven't you?

We have a lot. As a matter of fact, we have four CZUs that we've submitted. And you had one that was quoted, the one that you used in your presentation, you said it was submitted on February 5th, 2025. The first one I have is March 19, 2024. And they've made us go back and forth. Actually, January 3rd, 2024. And it's scratched on the top because you guys asked us to come back and do different things to them based on what we told you we wanted to do. Okay. But my point is, you've become quite familiar with city staff, correct?

I have. And you've engaged in plenty of meetings with city staff, correct? All the way up to the city manager's office, correct?

I don't believe I had a meeting with the city manager's office.

Well, you've had contact with Mr. Orris, haven't you?

We have. We were instructed that he was our only point of contact.

And isn't he a member of the city manager's office? He's an assistant city manager, correct?

I don't know what he is.

So this notion that the city has been working with you is not really fair based on the amount of meetings that the city, the city staff, and your staff have had with subculture. Isn't that fair?

Well, there's conflicting reports of what to do and what not to do. We have never been told what we can do. Even in that meeting where we had, Mr. Mayor showed you again that list of activities that he's been wanting to see if he's approved to do, and you guys yourselves couldn't tell him if he was approved to do or not. So you're expecting for him to do something that you yourselves don't know if he's approved to do or not.

So you've never been told not to have special events?

Have we been told that?

Yeah.

The commission has said that, yes.

You've never been told that you need to pay the parking lot?

That has been told, yeah.

Okay, no further questions.

Would you consider me having a friend for coffee and telling her I'm about to get married a special event?

I don't have to answer questions.

There's cross-examination, but thank you very much. Got it. Okay. Thanks. What's our time? How much time have we expired? Okay.

Good evening. I'm Esther Rose, 33496. I've got a whole thing to say here, but I'm so upset about the situation.

Ms. Rose, you have to give your entire address as this is a quasi-judicial hearing. Your entire address.

Oh, sorry. 6156 Northwest 31st Court, Boca Return, 33496. Okay, sorry. 245. I've got a whole thing that I have to say here tonight. Okay. But as the mother of Daniel Rose, I want to tell you that the harassment and the lies that have been going on about him are above and beyond anything anybody should have to suffer. Okay. I want to tell you something that I brought my children up not to lie, not to steal, and to be very upstanding young men. I have two sons, both of them attorneys, and I'm very proud of them. But the harassment, and I know that everybody said there's a wonderful vibe here. Of course there's a wonderful vibe for the structures because all these people have been told by the structure manager to come. We didn't go locking on doors that have had problems with the parking or the people that have been nasty because you don't do that. Nobody's going to come forward, but of course they will come forward. I don't think we want to completely close down structures. I want them to obey the law like everybody else does. You have to get respect. You have to earn it. And they have not earned any respect at all. My son has been threatened.

When we have, I'm sorry, when we have events at night, there's never been a parking issue. If we have, you know, people are parking inappropriately, those really are the grab-and-go customers. The people, they'll park in the cross-haired spots because they're going to be gone in ten minutes. The people who are staying in our shop, they're parking legally. They're parking in regular spots. When we had events a year and a half ago, when we had our fun latte art throwdowns, the people would find regular places to park. There was never an instance of someone parked inappropriately during one of our events. These aren't the times that Mr. Rose called the city, you know. So I don't know what the event space has to do with our parking problem, but the community events have not contributed to the parking problem at all. I mean, you know, it's people. We're a popular coffee shop. People want to come in. They want to get coffee. There's nowhere to park in Delray. There's three trucks taking up six spots, you know, in the same block as our parking spot. And there's never, you know, maybe we'll have one or two people parked inappropriately for five minutes. When we see them, we ask them to leave. And if those three spots were taken care of by the city, and I can attest, you know, I'm there at work five days a week, that McLaren truck is always there. Sometimes he'll move it, he'll swap it out for a different truck, you know. And I swear to God. And there was a succulent, a four-foot succulent growing under one of the box trucks. These are things that, like, all right, we're driving by. We've got to decide. Like, this could be – we could fix it, right? That's an extra spot. That's an extra two spots. Let's just ignore it for how long? I don't know. I guess since we've been open. The other thing – oh, shit. I'm sorry. I guess I ran out of time.

Let's just make sure we watch our language because there are decorum rules in the present, in the quasi-judicial rules.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Joanna Schmertz. I live at 301 Northwest 11th Street, Delray 33444. This is my first time speaking at a meeting. I've been a resident of Delray Beach for a while. I loved it from the beginning. And it's places like subculture and, to my knowledge, only subculture that offer the kind of community gathering space, if you want to call it that, that I think makes Delray the vibrant cultural arts place that I thought it was initially. It's not really – the corporate coffee shops are absolutely not the same. And this is the one place that still thrives and still survives despite all the garbage that they've been given lately. And it's not lately. It's been going on for a long time. I feel like I've followed most of this online for quite a while. The only information that I learned today that really surprised and disturbed me was the deliberate misquoting of Mr. Mayo when it came to the grab-and-go characterization. I completely agree with whoever said that he's at least owed an apology. I do not think that whether Rodney Mayo was a good guy or a bad guy has – that kind of language and that kind of accusation has any place in talking about what makes Delray Beach what it is and what it should be, what it can be, and what it has been. It should not be a battle between two parties, and the City Commission, I think, has – I don't know why there are members of the Commission that have taken sides, but I do think that there's not a lot of support for the kind of cultural growth that I think is so important, you know, for Delray Beach to be Delray Beach.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. His business model, in its essence, creates community, which in this day and age is in very short supply. I'm going to sort of jump to the end of this to say that Delray Beach should be working with Sobel Control to address the parking, not trying to shutter a local business. Under the banner of full transparency, I have to share something, which is that my day job while I'm here, as I said, representing myself, I am running a congressional campaign, and that is not why I'm here tonight. So under full transparency, I want the commission to know that I received a phone call after last time's meeting from Commissioner Casale, who warned me that I did not have the facts and that I should not stake my candidate's reputation on this particular item. I thought that was an inappropriate call to have made, and it put me in a very awkward position. As I said, I will end this the way I start. I stand here tonight as an activist and an organizer in the community. Thank you. Point of order.

Point of order. Thank you.

Okay.

I'd like to make a statement. What I said is you should get all the facts, and I stand by that statement.

And I stand by my statement that nobody on this commission, if you're going to disclose ex parte conversations, that should have been in your disclosure when you opened the meeting.

We can't go back and forth like this. She has the ability to speak that she's a commissioner, but your public comment is over.

Hi, I'm John Stevick. I live at 88 South Ocean Boulevard in Delray. I'm a very recently former owner of 301 Northeast 6th Avenue, directly across the street, across Federal, from the coffee shop. I was an owner from 2018 to one month ago, so about seven and a half years. I was always a supporter of seeing that space being used for something more productive, more social, more active. Brought more people, and I think that's exactly what the coffee shop bring. They bring people together. I think it's a fun area for me to go and get a coffee when I'm working on the property and want a quick refreshment. I'm kind of taken aback by this whole happening over the last few months, me hearing about it firsthand from friends that, hey, the coffee shop might no longer be here, and it's a parking issue. I, as an owner of 301 Northeast, had 20 parking spaces and never had an issue with anybody parking there. I actually received emails from Mr. Rosen before the coffee shop opened, coming to me as a fellow owner that's nearby, saying, hey, I think this is going to be a really big problem. We should get ahead of this. I chose not to respond because I thought it wasn't an issue, and I was right. It wasn't an issue, and I don't know why he keeps bringing this up and reaching out to people, anybody he can, saying, hey, let's shut this coffee shop down. I don't know why he has a problem. Again, I think he has seven or eight parking spaces. I had over 20, and I never had an issue. And so I just want to say I think it's a personal vendetta he has. I don't know his personal life that well, but I know that my interactions with him have not been pleasant. He's threatened to sue me. That was my first interaction with him before even meeting him.

We've got to get away from this he said, she said thing because the relevant points here is the activity going on. And while it's interesting, all these comments, it's not relevant to the things, and it's certainly not appropriate. We're not going to be disparaging. I think it's very relevant. Well, that's your opinion. So why can't I say my opinion?

He's the chair, and he can make decisions as to relevancy. At this point, I would recommend that you move on to the next point.

I'm asking you, we're not doing disparaging remarks up here. I don't think it's disparaging. You just threatened to sue me. It's not disparaging. It's just a fact. And all else I want to say is that I think it's been a great experience having the coffee shop across the street, and I would like for the coffee shop to stay.

Thank you very much. Somebody.

I'll make this really quick.

Name and address for the record, please.

My address. And name. We're all giving our addresses. We are. Okay. My name is Chaya Perlein. My address is 602 Sealoffs Drive in Boynton Beach. I think what John just mentioned was kind of a big deal, the fact that he had buildings directly across from the street from subculture, and not once has had any issue with regard to parking. And one thing I'll say is I started coming to subculture after the place I was formerly going to was also shut down by the city. And the reason I come to subculture is because it is the safest place for me to be pretty much in all of the spots in Del Rey. I'm just driving down the avenue, right? If I want to get a coffee from the avenue, I mean, there's a small likelihood I might get into a fender bender or something. There's no parking there. In this particular location, I feel safe. I find parking where I need to find parking. It is the most peaceful experience at that coffee shop. And it's really just this is amazing to me. It's so upsetting. You know, the first place I was going to where I found a community, I'm a very introverted person. And the first place that I found was shut down. And so this is really, really a very defeating feeling. And I really can't think of another place that I can go to where I feel this safe in every single way. I'm done. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. I'm Victoria Doyle, 920 North Gulfview Road, Lake Worth Beach, Florida 33460. Nobody told me to be here. As Philip mentioned, we're supporters of Mr. Mayo because he steps up and provides for the needy during economically stressful times. And we respect and appreciate that. In addition, he's opened a massive shelter for dogs who are saved from kill shelters. And he throws an annual holiday party closing part of Clematis for underprivileged kids, giving every single one a free toy, free food, free drink, and a wonderful day. My comments about subculture and parking, and I am a regular and I always park legally on the street because there are numerous parking spots in the area, are focused on government power versus small business. Less than three years ago, this city commission approved subcultures in lieu parking by a vote of 5 to 0. Today, he's being told to find 44 spaces or close. That sounds inconsistent, to say the least, contentious and possibly abusive. For those of us who love subculture and appreciate its artsy, comfortable, safe community vibe, it's hard to understand, and because it brings a lot of residents' pleasure, it's hard to understand why the city isn't trying to work with the small business owner to help it thrive. He employs 16 people. He paid for in-lieu parking, yet tonight we learned, as a matter of fact, the city has not used a dollar of that to help provide more spots. His coffee shop is approved for up to 50 seats. It's a restaurant, so of course some people sit down and stay with their coffee, croissant, and laptop. I would hope, in general, governments would work with, not against, small businesses and help them succeed. Thank you. Thank you very much.

You ready? We're ready.

My name is Bradley Boe. I live at 14769 60th Street North, Loxahatchee, Florida, 33470. I operate all of the restaurants that Rodney Mayo owns on a daily basis, and five coffee shops, right? Five different places, five different areas. I've been to all of them often. I will tell you that none of them have easy parking. You know, there are garages at some. There are garages at others. Some of them, you are in a one-way and you can't get back around, so you have to go the other way. It's called being a driver. You know, you have to figure that out on our own accord. It's not our fault how other people act when they're at our restaurant outside of the location on-premise, correct? So, when I wake up every morning, I wonder what is the next thing that's going to happen today in subculture that I'm going to have to, you know, answer, right? I think that Delray, as one of my five coffee shops that I manage, is the one that I have to call on the least, right? When I have questions about inventory or maintenance or anything, sales, attitude, accountability, this shop is taking care of itself pretty much. I got to see some of them today, and I don't see them often because they don't need me to be there, right? They run it on their own. They make the relationships with their guests on their own. What I want to do is for them to create relationships so that, again, we can continue to stay in guest experience and in happiness with the people that support us, right, locally. You can hear what Rodney does for people all day long and what he does for the community. That's public record, right? Right? Everybody knows that. But what these baristas do for the guests and the fact that they all want to come up here as guests and tell you how great the experience at that shop is itself, it is one of five shops, but it is also its own shop, right? It thrives in its own city, and it needs to be helped as such. So I'd rather move on to something else, but we would love to communicate and find a way to work together. I work with health departments. I work with the DBPR. I work with cities. I work with electricians. I work with plumbers. I work with all kinds of different people. I have rarely found a situation where I can't sit down with somebody and find a solution, and then we can move on, and then we can both proceed together happily on our own ways, right? We just want to exist. I'm very nervous about this, too, because it makes me bummed out. You know, at the end of the day, we just want to create a space. A friend of mine, and I've got ten seconds, he's having a baby right now, but he sent me a letter, and it said, hey, I own, I am with, just let me tell you what the post is, and then you can move me on. Robby Alvarez from the Artist Post, and he basically says, we just want to be able to create an artistic space where we can all be together. We all want a warm, safe, thriving, and vibrant city. Let's work together to protect this vision. With respect, Robby Alvarez, founder of the Artist Post.

Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Michael Dixon. I live and reside at 8194 Severn Drive in Boca Raton, Florida, 33433. While I reside in Boca Raton, I still find the importance of the topic of subculture very important to me and personal because I also go to their Boca Raton location frequently, and when I'm not getting my coffee at Boca Raton and I come here in Delray, I'm definitely coming here always at the subculture Delray location. The importance about it is that I think there's an important distinction on the parallels because there needs to be a moderation attitude regarding the fact that we want to find a solution towards parking, same way how they've managed to find solution in parking at the Meisner location in Boca Raton, and why any issues with parking vehicles that I've seen on photos have been private individuals that are causing any parking issues that are not affiliated with the owner of the Delray location or any of the staff. None of those are staff vehicles, none of those are the owner's vehicles, so that's all based on a private individual, which the location itself has stated back previously and has directed the customers with a sign stating, including myself, that if you can't find parking on the location, that you can park on the corner of 3rd Street and 5th Avenue when it was available at its time when I last checked. When it comes to events as well, in Boca Raton, they do have their Thursday trivia nights, so it doesn't cause a situation where they need a special permit, the same way you wouldn't need a special permit to host a Mexican restaurant every Tuesday for Taco Tuesdays, or you wouldn't need a brewery to host a special event permit if they want to do IPAs on Thursdays, etc. So the fact that you're able to try and close a business down because it's only 1,600 square feet and can't physically reproduce an additional 31 parking spaces versus the legitimate failure that the Delray Market Hall was when it's 150,000 square feet just shows that we are trying our best to deter the problem to individual businesses rather than the city, not assisting those individual businesses and creating additional spots and rather would focus on closing rather than solutions. So I want to offer that topic of discussion where, while I don't have any personal gripes with any of the two parties, whether it's the neighbors or subculture, I definitely am in favor of wanting subculture to continue, wanting to continue to thrive, and clearly, the majority of the community is in favor of the fact that 99%, or not statistically 99%, at least well over half of the percent of their revenue has been dined in and leaving their not paid event tickets. It's no different than, like I said before, if a Mexican restaurant decided to hire a mariachi band on a taco Tuesday, that they would be any different than, you know, what the establishment is presently. So I definitely want subculture to continue. I want the solutions to be, you know, executed. And if the city can promote the fact that they want solutions to exist, that that's why subculture should continue having its establishment in business today. Thank you.

I am just alerting the public that there is 10 minutes left to public comment. So govern your times accordingly.

Hello, my name is Gabriela Watson. I live at 1089 Northwest 13th Street, Boca Raton. I work for the Department of Health, and I've been in assistance of approving dozens of restaurants and coffee shops. I just want to read a little something, because my husband and I are frequent goers of subculture. As you've heard from the other speaker, subculture is a staple where the community comes together to play, to relax, to connect with old friends and new friends. Taking the space from the community would be like taking away a home away from home, really. The issue has come up about events. Although the space offered more events in the year prior, I nor anyone I know has attended an event since the business learned of its parking parameters, and to make those accusations today would be false. Please rethink how much this great little coffee shop gives back to us as members of the Delray community in so many ways. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. My name is Colin Pine. I live at 4374 Juniper Terrace, Buen Beach, Florida, 33442. I'd like to be here today to kind of let you guys know how much of an impact subculture has had on me. I'm a very introverted person, just like the young woman that was a couple people before me. I've launched two successful businesses out of subculture. I've done a lot. I've actually grew up here in Delray off of George Bush, so I've been part of both Delrays, right? All I hear a lot of times every time I come and see you guys is trying to figure out the identity of Delray Beach, right? What are you guys trying to accomplish? What do you guys want to move forward in, right? Subculture is an identity in itself. It brings in so many different people from all different communities to come here, spend tax dollars, go to different businesses on the Ave, go to the beach, go everywhere they can. I personally feel like this is a witch hunt that's been happening against Rodney Mayo. I feel like you guys are just kind of going through this system and just attacking him, and I believe that it's super unfair to close a shot because of one individual. I'm not going to go into a definition case because that's not my goal, but I've personally seen numerous times of this certain individual chase people down the street in his car. And it's a police record, mind you. I've personally seen this individual chase people down the street in his car because someone parked across the street from his business. I just, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just super unfair what you guys are doing. I'm going to let other people speak, but I just want to share that. So, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead.

Hi, my name is David Weir. My address is 701 Northeast Harbor Terrace, Boca Raton, Florida. I work for Subculture. I've known Rodney for roughly 40 years. I worked at this first establishment, Respectables. I was a law enforcement officer here in Palm Beach County for 25 years. I retired. I'm the director of security for all of his places from Miami up to Junior right now. I just wanted to say one or two things about, first is the veracity of Mr. Rose's claims. We have a tech contractor that works for us, does various things in conjunction with general security questions and things like that. And he was engaged on social media by a person in identity. Because he's so tech savvy, and what was being said was the individual was attempting to solicit ill will in forms of potential violence or Yelp reviews and things like that against Mr. Rose. Well, what our tech person did was when they exchanged emails for a more private conversation, he did a screen grab. And what he's able to determine, even though the person was using a VPN to get around an identification, the screen grab indicated what the IP address was. The IP address was traced back to Mr. Rose himself. So what he was doing, he was soliciting people in general, almost in Munchausen syndrome type situation, where creating a drama around himself so people would act out in some way against him.

Does this have anything to do with this, actually, though? This is between him and Mr. Rose.

Sure it does.

It's the veracity of his claims against and his also state of mind. It would be that, so somebody would do something, his claims of vandalism, his claims of harassment, these are, if anything, self-generated in order to appeal to your, I guess, sympathy in some way for his position. Second thing, last thing, is I did a series of public record requests maybe a couple months ago, and it just seems odd. Two weeks after the requests were made, I went through the whole process, of course. All of a sudden, the meeting for the resolution occurred, the resolution was agreed upon, and the hearing started. It just seems a bit odd in time-wise. But that's all I have to say. I appreciate your time, and take care.

Hi, Julianne Kelly. My address is 8113 Tumblestone Court, Delray Beach, Florida, 33446. I am a local resident, and I have been a customer of Subcultures since their inception in Delray, as well as their other locations as well, and the previous locations in Delray, so two others prior to this one. I've heard the concern that this business operates more like a gathering space than a traditional coffee shop, and I actually think that's exactly why it's so valuable. It's one of the few places in our community where people come together, where I, as many other people have said, have felt comfortable being there, unlike more corporate businesses that are popping up left and right. The fact that it's so busy and driving foot traffic should be seen as a success, not something that forces them out. Requiring additional parking that isn't realistically possible effectively shuts down a thriving small business. I'd encourage us to think about how we can support what's clearly working here, rather than applying standards that unintentionally eliminate it. I'd also like to point out that Uber and other rideshare apps do exist, and I myself use them frequently when I know that there is limited parking at a space. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. My name is Heather Hedrick. I live at 401 West Atlantic Avenue in Delray. I have no affiliation with subculture, but I do walk through the area where subculture is almost every day, and I've never seen an issue with parking. I've never seen any illegal parking or any spillage. We heard the traffic officer today say that there's not an issue with parking. If the commission does anything other than maintain the status quo, you are effectively, as a city, trying to shut down this business that builds community. On the topics of events, Rich Wagon and the law firm are not open when most of the events occurred. As a community member, I ask the commission to maintain the status quo. This is not about parking, because it's no different than any other business in the business district where I live. Mr. Mayor and the commission, I hope you can see how much subculture means to the community of Delray by our attendance today. I ask the commission to encourage events and special locations that foster goodness and community. I don't know any other spot that people can gather that isn't a bar. This feels like a witch hunt, and I truly don't understand how we got to this point today. Let's be better than this.

Thank you very much.

Jim Walsh, 207 South Seacrest Circle, Delray Beach. I live on the north end. I'll be super quick. I just want to say on the parking issue, I go every day for grab-and-go to subculture. I either park in the lot or straight down Federal Highway. I don't have an issue. It seems like this problem is being overblown and thrown on your desk from my daily perspective on the issue. If you move those box trucks, I think you have plenty of parking, and the problem is solved. That's in my daily experience going to this place. Secondly, I think we're only here also, as the former commissioner said, because subculture is so successful. It's the kind of business Delray needs. It is definitely the kind of business this North Federal Highway stretch needs. If you're not excellent, you're going to die there. Subculture is excellent. The French bakery is excellent, and the traffic there is a nuisance on weekend mornings. I don't care. It's a successful business. Popstroke's been a nuisance. It's a destination business. All three of those are destination businesses. Anything else is going to fail on this stretch of highway. So I hope you'll support the community. Mr. Mayo, love them or hate them. Mr. Rose, love them or hate them. It's not about them. It's about the community, and I hope that you'll support this place, because it is a business this community needs.

You will be our last commentator, speaker. I apologize. I love everybody.

I'm Andrea Rutnick. I'm at 1365 Crystal Way, Delray Beach, 33444. I just think it's abhorrent that the city has collected what it was, $118,000 from this small business for in-lieu parking, and obviously knowing that parking might be an issue at this location, and the city has done absolutely nothing to help them solve this problem. I think, again, like many others have said, that our city should be supporting these types of businesses. These types of businesses bring a lot of good things to our community. I think these types of businesses are going to make people love Delray Beach. They're going to make people want to come back to Delray Beach. They're going to support all the businesses in Delray Beach just because of the type of community they bring, the type of feelings they bring, the type of love, support. It's all good things that we should be supporting in our community. And, again, like other people have said, all the events that this business has been putting on happen after normal business hours for most other businesses. So I think most of the street parking in this area is going to be cleared up and free and available to anyone attending these events at those times. So I don't think that's going to be an issue with the parking as much as the actual grab-and-go service during the normal business day. So, again, yeah, I just encourage you to help this business. I don't want to see them leave. I've been a longtime supporter of them as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Can you just ask for 30 seconds? 30 seconds? Can I get rebuttal on cross-examination? I'm sorry, what?

Mr. Mayor, we'll have rebuttal on cross-examination when I'm done. Yeah, we got it.

If the city goes for it, then you'll have a chance to come back up to rebut. Yes, to the city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few questions for you, and then I'll wrap it up. Okay. Ms. Genotis, this commission has the authority to re-designate this property as either a meeting place or it's already designated as a restaurant. So they can re-designate it as a meeting place, correct?

They can interpret the use within the code. They are the final say in interpreting the use as being on the site.

And the 44 spaces was just based on a mathematical computation, correct? Correct. And, in fact, they can assess less than 44 spaces if they find that a smaller number is appropriate based on what they've heard today, correct? Correct. And you heard me ask Commissioner Boylston, former Commissioner Boylston, about the fact that at the end of the proceeding in 2023, the city commission had a very short discussion about amending the in-loop parking ordinance. Correct. Was that, in fact, done? Yes. And what was the major change that came about from that ordinance?

The findings that a business has to make were adjusted. And then there's another change that I'm trying to find it exactly. I'll paraphrase that you actually have to improve your own lot physically as part of the approval, largely because we are still waiting for a properly striped parking lot from this applicant.

Thank you. So, Mayor, if I can just sum it up for the commission very quickly. I actually take exception to the notion that's been repeated over and over again tonight that the city has not worked with Mr. Mayo. I actually did a really quick search on my calendar of the word subculture, and I had 11 different entries of meetings that I've had. I'm the city attorney. I shouldn't even be involved in these conversations. I don't even know how many meetings Development Services has had, code enforcement has had. I know Public Works was involved in some meetings. I know Mr. Moore's office was involved in meetings. So that's not a fair allegation to make. And what happens is when people litigate on social media, the city is not going to respond because that's not the proper forum to air your grievances. This is a forum. And the fact that we're here today, this never should have happened. But we're here for one reason, and it's because Mr. Mayo refuses to comply with the land development regulations and his approvals. That's the only reason why we're here. You heard it from his own mouth, and he may not like that I'm paraphrasing. I didn't put the word grab-and-go in his mouth. That's what he said. And when you go back and listen to that meeting, there was nothing about community cultural gathering, chessies. He didn't pitch that to the commission because I'm fairly confident that had he done that, he may not have gotten that approval because that's a different use than a grab-and-go. Everybody knows what a grab-and-go is like. You don't need as many spaces as you need for a meeting place. So it's not fair that there's allegations being thrown at your city staff, against your staff, like we're here because we don't want to work with him. That's not fair, that's not accurate, and that's not true. The fact of the matter is your staff has gone over and beyond the call of duty to get this building into compliance, and he doesn't want to do it. You heard that the zoning certificate of use was amended. Whether or not Amy Alvarez made him write those things under oath, it doesn't matter because it was denied, yet he still did it. Yet he filed a building permit because he knew he had to, and it's still sitting open for 179 days because he doesn't want to do it. So I think it's really unfortunate that we're here. I think it's a complete waste of everyone's time. If he put in as much effort into getting that building into compliance as he did to bring all these people here today, he wouldn't have half the problems that he has. This isn't about Daniel Rose. This isn't about Albert Richwagon because I'm going to submit to you that all of the problems on this property are within that parcel. It's located all within his property, and it's spilling out. But what you can do today, and whatever you decide to do today, staff is going to execute. But everything that's a problem is his own doing and his failure to come into compliance and his failure to take action. And we can sit here and trash fellow businesses, but that's not fair. Because when you look at it, at the end of the day, a picture's worth a thousand words, and those pictures didn't lie. You didn't see striping. You saw a private parking lot that was not paved, and you saw parking spilling onto Federal Highway. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. It's a small business. If you meet 12 times with them and you're still trying to put them out of business, you need 12 more times. This business has a right to exist. As it was drawn up, it's a grab-and-go. The facts that were submitted into evidence is this is more than 60% of grab-and-go. There are no facts contrary to that. The competent substantial evidence doesn't support any other finding. The question is, is the vehicle to address the parking situation, to rezone them? None of the information you have here. If this were to be appealed, would there be competent substantial evidence that there was a justification to change their zoning? No. And all the evidence that's presented this far is growing pains from a business at a location that had no choice but to make that work. The commissioner got up here and said that area of Federal Highway was what Delray wanted to draw people, to develop, to make it more than just a bunch of mechanic shops. This is what Delray wanted. And there will be growing pains. They will not end today. There will be more problems, but they don't get solved by putting them out of business. And that is where we are. This hearing is for rezoning to an impossible zoning designation. And this hearing, if it's appealed, will have to have competent substantial evidence that it's not grab-and-go. You don't have that. That there were other options, the city not actually policing the parking on Federal Highway. You don't have that either. There are solutions here that don't involve changing their zoning. And please give us that opportunity. We are not done yet. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just for clarity of the record, I said I had 12 meetings. I don't know what staff did. I know it was more. Furthermore, this is not a rezoning. If this were a rezoning, you know that there would be notice, there would be a whole different procedure for a city-initiated rezoning. That's not what this is. This is a re-evaluation of a parking requirement due to an applicant owner's failure to comply.

Great. Staff, city's done? Mr. Mayo's done? You may have 30 seconds, Mr. Mayo.

Until I get here.

I won't count the time you're walking out somewhere.

Oh, thank you so much. I just want to say that we, to the bottom of my heart, we have tried to cooperate. I've called most of these meetings. I've tried to meet with Daniel Rose for three and a half years. I've tried to meet with Rich Wagon. They cut me off. I am still just saying my 30 seconds. Mrs. Rose, you seem like a very lovely lady. I would love to sit down and have coffee with you and to see if we can, like, come to some agreement. I don't think your son is ever going to do that. Mr. Rich Wagon, I've offered this for years and years. I've offered this to the city. I didn't have a chance to give all my facts, but all my facts that are facts that are black and white will deny your accusations. I don't know what you have against me personally, but it's pretty evident the way you talk about me is personal. Thank you.

Your comments need to be addressed to the commission.

Thank you very much to the commission. Let me just say, you know, when we talk about competent evidence, we talk about this. We heard a lot of people stand up here saying this is a wonderful place where we like to sit and go and stay for a long time, and it's a wonderful place and et cetera, et cetera. So it is within the commission's purview to review the use as originally approved and for what it has morphed into. So it is perfectly within the city's right to do that if the use has actually morphed from what they thought it was going to be. And that's really what we're here about, not whether or not Mr. Mayo is a fine human being, takes care of the poor, takes care – I mean, all of which is true. As I said, I go up to his restaurant in Howley's. He does a great job up there. He's got great people that work for him, but that's really not the issue of how charitable he is or, you know, how well the place is run. The issue is whether or not this location's use is appropriate for the parking that was originally designated for it or whether or not something has changed in the use from the original approval. It's a real narrow focus that we have here. I would love to be able to take all these things into consideration, but, you know, as I read my quasar judicial rules, all these things don't – interesting facts, you get to know a lot about somebody, but they're not relevant to the decision that this commission has to make, and that's whether or not this site and the use of this site and the parking that was originally approved for this site is the same as it was when it was approved or is it now something different? And if it's now something different, it's perfectly within the city's rights to re-review the use and determine what the parking should be. We have options, and those are going to be put somewhere on the board. But I just wanted to say because something was approved three years ago doesn't mean things don't change. We've all said how wonderful the city has changed. It has. So we have to take in mind what our focus here is in terms of this quasar judicial hearing, and I'm going to turn it over to the first one who wants to speak about it. Who would you –

Can I ask you a question?

Who's you? No, you may not. No, you may not. Nope.

Let me start.

I would like to – I would like to have – Commissioner Burns, you have asked to be recognized.

You may be recognized. Thank you. Thank you. So I just want to start by saying this clearly that I support small business, always have, always will. I think that they are the heartbeat of our community. And my intention here is not to shut down any business. That has never been my thought. But to come to a conclusion about a solution and that the city and the owners and the neighbors can all work together. I don't think that the impact of one business should impact another business. And that we do know that, you know, I was on the commission when we approved this as a grab-and-go model. And apparently it has changed its use or the activity over time, which is great. It's growing. I thought that subculture was going – I thought it would brighten up that corner and be a great business. And it sounds like it has. I personally don't drink coffee, so I'm not in there. But, you know, it's a wonderful place. I am also – my son had a business and had to close the doors of his business for similar reasons, constant complaints about noise, constant complaints about what was going on. So I do support small business. And maybe the city could have done something more to help mitigate this and the beginning of this thing. But I am just looking forward to hopefully Mr. Mayo and his staff or whatever can agree to the – what we need to do on his property. And then we can enforce getting those trucks. That frees up four spots. And this 44, I think, is excessive. I don't think that that is necessary. So I am here to come to a conclusion so that this business can continue to thrive and support that. So thank you. And one last thing. I am dark on the outside, but I am not dark on the inside.

I'm dark on the inside. Our new commissioner, Malika, would you like to weigh in on this issue?

Thank you very much. I did run on being pro-business. And I know the city is having some meetings about economic development. This is what we want. We want our businesses to thrive in this city. And I think that we need to advocate for business, not be adversary. And I know that the professionals in the city have tried really hard working. But I do, like Angela, think there's a solution. That truck that's been sitting there over a year that was unregistered that was finally moved, let's start doing a little enforcement about that. And we could maybe take that $100,000 and build a couple parking spots. I went back and looked at the meeting, and it struck me something that was said. Oh, I'm sorry. This is the meeting when the in-lieu parking was granted. And Shelly, in her wisdom, Mayor Petrolia, said, okay. And then another question, how would we enforce this if, in fact, you find that it's very, very popular, the restaurant, right? Everybody wants to be there, and all the spaces are taken. So now they're starting to flow into the, you know, businesses that are around. How would we enforce that? And the city attorney said it would be a PD issue if there's, you know, a towing signs that could be enforced that way. So it's almost as though we already had the enforcement in place before the problem happened. But I think clearing out some of those parking spots will be a solution. We need to provide a solution, not a problem. Another thing that I agree with one of the speakers about, and that is that I think marketing your business isn't necessarily special events. I know that there is a poet, not poetry, what's a thing when I can never answer questions? Trivia. Trivia night. There's a trivia night. You got that right. Trivia question. Weekly. And then, like, and that's on Facebook advertising it. And they have those sipping shops at Periwinkle and some of the other retail spots, which is on Facebook advertising it. That's not a special event. That's just marketing your business. Now, thank you. I do think an outdoor concert and some of the other things that have happened can happen anymore without a special event permit. But I think that Mr. Mayo has learned that, which is why some of it has curtailed in the last nine months. But I do – I don't want us to sculpt the Facebook and try to see something, you know, that any other restaurant or business could get away with. But that's kind of where I'm at. Oh, one last thing. I'm sorry. One last thing. I think that somebody said when young people are out there personally connecting and, like, not drinking alcohol, that's a cool thing. I want to see that continue.

Kassam? Commissioner Kassam?

I'll go. So I appreciate you all coming here. I didn't necessarily like some of the comments that our staff hasn't been cooperative because I know they have. The number of meetings, because this is – you've only come here for this issue, I can tell you, having sat here for a long time, we don't typically find ourselves having to engage this much with a business owner. And the problem really occurred at the very beginning because if Mr. Mayo had come to us and said, this is my plan for this location, then we would have understood his needs. Every – the occupancy relates to how many parking spaces you need and what you're doing on the premises relates to your needs. Had we had a clearer understanding of what his intentions were, then we would have had a better understanding of his needs. And we could have helped him be successful. But because he told us he was just going to be a grab-and-go, we – excuse me, you're not allowed to do that. Please. Just please be respectful. So his failure is unfortunate, but it's in part due to the fact that he didn't really represent what he was doing. And then as this evolves, we have, you know, a fire safety plan that's not properly being met, that's a safety issue, that's our obligation. We have complaints, I think a number of violations, which we actually, Mr. Moore, held on to because he said, listen, we're trying to help this situation, we're trying to help this situation. And it was unique. You know, it was – I've been to the place. The parking is challenging. When people start parking next to the handicap, you can't even get in or out. It doesn't work well for what you need. And if we had known what you needed, we would have told you that in the beginning. So how do we come up with a solution? That's challenging. This gentleman got up and he said, I'm a surrounding business and I don't have a problem. But what I didn't hear him say is that I'm offering to give Mr. Mayo parking spaces for a fee. Because those surrounding businesses that are coming in here and saying we support you, then make an arrangement with him to sell a couple of your parking spaces for his events. You know, these are the things, Mr. Mayo, that you should have been on social media asking for help and said, no, don't say I'm crazy. That's not polite. Yeah, thank you. That's lovely. I mean, and this is why – I came after I got elected and sat down to work with you on this problem. And what became readily apparent is you weren't trying hard for solutions. Staff has met with you more than any other person. I met with you. I like the location. I like the coffee. Okay, Mr. Mayo, we didn't sit down and meet. I don't know how to solve this problem, even though everybody's saying we want to solve it. I didn't appreciate the attorney saying we're mad. I'm not mad at Mr. Mayo. I do not want to constantly be every weekend dealing with complaints. Mr. Rose is not the only complainant. There are so many people who said they were afraid to complain because they don't want to experience the same backlash. We would like a solution to this problem, but I do not know what it is because as we sit here today, if we say status quo, then what we're saying is your application with us, your zoning certificate of use, we're just going to not require you to follow it. We have a job here. We're the gatekeepers. They have an application. We know what's going on here. We have the requirement to do something. So what is it? We leave it status quo. We're just going to continue this cycle. This does not work for anybody. Our staff, our police resources being exhausted here, the fire department, the code department, this is an inordinate amount of city taxpayer time and money spent trying to solve this problem. So it needs to be solved here. We determine that the use is consistent with a meeting place, assess the appropriate number of parking spaces, and credit him 13 spaces. That becomes challenging because we know he's going to either have to buy a lot more in lieu, and he's not allowed to buy so much. So he's in a sticky situation. If we require a subculture to obtain the tri-party off-site parking agreement, see, I think we should stay where we are right now and let's do this in phases. Let's first make him do what he's supposed to be doing on his parking lot. And let's ask him to find a tri-party off-site parking agreement with one of the lovely people who came here and spoke on his behalf. And then when he comes back to us and he said he's done that, then maybe we consider how do we make this the meeting place so we don't have to deal with this on a weekly basis. Because ultimately, I like the things he's doing. I would just like them to comply with our rules. And that's for us to allow. But we can't really allow it today as we sit here. So I think this is a staged resolution, starting with him fixing his parking lot the way it's supposed to be, finding a tri-party agreement, coming back to us, and then let's try to figure out how he can get those additional spaces. I'm willing to help Mr. Mayo. We want to help Mr. Mayo. But I think he has to put a little bit on the table here. That's what I think.

Thank you. Mr. Marker.

I wish Mr. Mayo would come back in. I hope I can say some things that are helpful to everybody. But first of all, I want to say thank you to the entire community you turned out today. That's what Delray is all about. And I can tell you, sitting up here, it's very impactful to hear all the commentary. And I thank you all for taking a few hours out of your day to do that. It shows passion, and I love it. And as you know, I'm fairly new to the commission, and I come out of the private sector, so I don't have some of the government experience that others have. But I want you to know I support this business. I've been there a few times. I like it. It's near my house. I like it. But what did happen, in my opinion, is that this business morphed from the original application. I won't say the original application was right, but it's morphed. And that's okay in business. Businesses morph. And coming out of the private sector, that's a good thing. But this business has morphed. I don't think it's as much grab-and-go as it was originally intended to be. And there's other events that Mr. Mayo has used to grow the business. That's good. I mean, that's what capitalism is all about. So I'm not against any of that. So my plea today would be, let's fix the issues. Once and for all, let's come together as a city. Let's fix the issues. The stuff that I heard, let's stripe the parking lot to city specifications and take that issue off the table. Okay? Can we do that? Okay. Employee parking. Let's make the employees park off-site so that we have two more spots that we talked about for our employees. Let's ask the employees to cooperate on that. Help us out. Park off-site. Doesn't sound hard to me. Let's ask our police department to better enforce the parkers that are there for weeks at a time. I drive by there and I've kind of witnessed that. So let's figure out what's right and what's wrong. And let's not allow people to be parking there for weeks, which is what it's not intended. None of these things, in my opinion, are going to get us to bright. But they're going to show noticeable, noticeable improvement. We all got to want to do this. You know, in lieu parking, I brought this up when I was campaigning. I haven't personally liked our policy on in lieu. I see why we've done it. And it's helped us establish a lot of businesses, and that's a good thing. But, you know, has the money always been used, in my opinion, perfectly to find other avenues for parking? Probably not. And the one thing I have to say with where this business is located, I don't think we own any land up there. So I don't think we have an opportunity, as a couple people brought up, to put some parking up there. I don't think we have it. So I think we're confined to what we have. But in my opinion, if we striped a lot to city code, we asked the employees to park off-site. That will get us a spot or two. Let's get the police to assist us with the longer-term parking to see if that can open up some spots. And then the last thing I would ask is, you know, if subculture could also help the community. And let's educate those that are coming in that we can't anger our neighbors and having them parking illegally. That's not fair. And that's not being a good neighbor, guys. And I think we can all work together, and we can get past this. So my two cents.

Yes, you may have the floor.

I wanted to ask, in lieu of something that Commissioner Marker just said, ask the city attorney and Thea, I'm not sure. When we talked and we were looking at the map, isn't there an area on the side of subculture or in the back where the city can put in a couple of parking spaces?

I actually reached out to Missy Barletto, Director of Public Works, today. We can look at it. There's drainage issues. There's a tree. I'm just going to say this, and everything that you're saying is 100% accurate. But if Mr. Mayo can get a professional, a design professional, to assist him with the parking, we're pretty confident that they can massage this in a way that perhaps the city or him can at least make one spot. That would be like the proverbial grab-and-go spot. So, yes, but he has to work with us. You know, he has to hire the qualified people that are able to do this, that are able to draw it out, and that are able to submit the proper documents so that our staff can review it with them and come up with a decision that everyone can live with, and that's compliant with the code.

That's a great idea, Lynn. I think that I want to address a couple of things that were said because, you know, there was an awful lot of testimony here which actually bodes very well for the city to designate this as a meeting place. I think that everyone was kind of testifying that that's what it is, and, you know, one or two didn't. But, I mean, I think the vast majority of that evidence suggests that. That said, I do think that, you know, he's done a great job there. And as I said, I started – he morphed into this thing because I was there. I was actually at the meeting when this got approved. And my wife goes there. I mean, everyone I know goes there. They love the place. But there is a parking problem, and I do recognize that the surrounding businesses don't – should not be burdened with customers who, even if Mr. Mayo is saying you're not allowed to park there, they go ahead and park there anyway. So that's a problem. But we need to work harder in – and I want to make just one comment. You talked about – one talked about Popstroke, and they talked about these other places. This is a different zoning district. You know, if you're in the entertainment district, you can get away with a heck of a lot more than you can if you're not in the entertainment district. And that's a fact, and I complain about that too. But that's a fact. So this is a different district. So we have to be cognizant that whatever we do here really does have ramifications for all the other properties on that block. But there's ways we can probably better enforce what goes on on Federal Highway. I mean, the FDOT is involved here. It's not just the city, by the way. I wish I could tell you I could enforce people not parking there because I wanted to get rid of people parking their boats on South Federal Highway to free spots there. And I was told I couldn't do that. The FDOT, those spots are controlled by the FDOT. So it's not as simple as people think, okay? The FDOT is kind of their road. So we can massage it as best we can, and we've got a good relationship with them, and that's certainly something that we're going to do because I think those constant parking there is not what they had in mind by allowing commercial vehicles to park on Federal Highway. So I think we've got a very good argument to get those off, and I think we're going to push that as soon as we can push that. But I do think that, you know, 190 days without striping, I mean, after the last thing is a little bit – I mean, I have a sense of humor, but, you know, I've sat on that side of the dais a lot of times trying to get stuff done. They would not have let me open without my parking lot being striped, and that's a fact. They would have made me have it striped before they gave me a CO. So all things considered, I think there's been a great deal of flexibility on behalf of the city with this location. So I'm not buying into if the city is the big ogre here. No, it's not. Those places should have been striped. You should have had a parking engineer out there figuring out how you could maximize your parking, and you didn't do that. So that's something that should have been done. So the city is right in saying, you know, you haven't done your end of the bargain either, which you haven't. But I do think that – I think 44 spaces is a lot. So I'm willing to look at whether or not that's the right number or whether or not it could be a reduced number. But as Commissioner Casale said, I mean, it's kind of a two-way street here. I mean, we've got to see some movement on behalf of subculture. Okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to see if we can find a couple of parking spaces here. You know, maybe we'll get an off-site agreement with somebody very nearby because there are places that probably would do it at night. And I will take exception to the fact there is something there is a Saturday from 9 to 1.30. It's a well – some reading seminar. They're bringing people in there. So there are still events going on there. I mean, you know, I'm not saying they're bringing in hundreds of people. Okay, well, I got the text message to – okay, well, whatever. I don't appreciate being called a liar, but whatever.

Yeah, could we have Anthea address that because that's an important issue. Anthea would like to address that.

So are there lines on the parking lot? Yes. No one is saying that. However, they do not meet the current standard. The parking was nonconforming. We are asked – we would have, to the mayor's point, this should have been done before CO, by giving Mr. Mayo some leniency. It needs to be done properly. It needs to be done by a design professional that can make the spaces and the back-out room and the handicap access point from the handicap space to the door. And look at the geometry of this very tight site. It is feet and inches. It is not just sketching some lines. It needs to be done to the city standard with the double stripe, with all of the things that we can fit, to see if we can reconfigure the asphalt and the open space that's there, to glean a couple more spaces to get, if we can't, that the eight spaces are as legally conforming as possible, and to see if we can adjust the circulation pattern to maybe make room that a parallel space could be installed on the side street across from Mr. Bridgewagon. That takes an actual design professional who can do the application and sign and seal it. And that's what we need.

That's going to be – but I just want to just – the ad that has been on your website talks about World Walkers Boutique Catchers at Subculture Del Rey on April 4th from 9.30 to 1.30. Come hang out, browse, have some good reads.

So – okay.

Good to hear. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm happy to be corrected. That's okay. But the point is we do – we want to solve a problem here. And I think getting it properly striped, getting a parking engineer out there is part of it, helping us work with Federal Highway to get that accomplished because that really is ridiculous. But also we do need to be cognizant of enforcement of people not parking on the other – on private property, which is not being done to the degree that I think it could be done. And that's where we – I mean, I believe that Commissioner Gonzalez and – well, I guess everybody's kind of thought here is this – we should do this in a phased –

Can I make a suggestion?

– phased thing to get done. But I want a timeline. I don't want to just say I want you to – I want you to stripe the thing. So you've got 90 days to stripe the thing or whatever. I mean –

I think the easiest, most painless way to do this would be to postpone this. Not make a determination. You don't – Not make a determination on the designation yet. Give Mr. Mayo 90 days. 90 days to come back with a plan. He's going to have that parking lot restriped. He's going to prove to you that, you know, his – either his employees aren't parking there or he has an off-site parking agreement. And have him come back. Have him do the work that the city's been asking him to do. I agree. And put his feet to the fire. If he comes back and it's not done, well, then you have competent, substantial evidence to do what you have to do. Right. But I think – I think 90 days is a fair timeline. I think if he comes back and he brings you everything you need, we're good. You know, that's what we wanted all along.

In the meanwhile, we will reach out to FDOT. We will reach out to the things. Missy has already said that. And with our police chief back there to see a way we can, you know – I've already initiated collaboration with the chief of police and the police department's and for us.

I'll be providing you all with enough space for these two trucks.

I mean, it's crazy. What we're going to ask FDOT to do is put timed parking spaces, like two-hour parking, three-hour parking.

Those people shouldn't be allowed to park there the whole time either. Or no overnight parking. So, I mean, we've got to have equal enforcement. We have to have equal enforcement of the rules.

FDOT has been reluctant to do that, but we will initiate the conversation. And when he brings his design professional and his plans in, we will work with him to try to get an extra space. So, I think the best course –

So, we're not going to – I mean, do I have to have – I mean, I will do that. We have a meeting. We're civil. If you have something, you know, please. If everyone has their chance to speak. I'm trying to make everyone have a fair chance.

We do this all day long with commercial businesses, and what we are asking for in the quality of the design and the plan in meeting the minimum standard requirements for submission has not been met to date.

Okay. So, let me see if we have – I'm sure we can. Let me see if we have consensus here. Yes. We're going to push this – we're going to not act on this tonight. We're going to move in 90 days. We are going to – we're going to ask Mr. Mayo or give Mr. Mayo a timeline to come into compliance as it relates to striping – to striping his facility, right, enforcing the illegal parking things that – Wait a sec. Anthea said – Ask the employees to park off-site, okay? And we will do our part, do our best with FDOT to get those two spots, maybe three spots freed up, right? But you're going to have to – and I'm going to ask the city also that we're going to make sure that we're going to enforce if people are going to – that Mr. Mayo needs to understand that if people are going to be illegally parked, they will be ticketed. They will be towed. That's the only way to make it happen, so –

Can I just ask for Anthea to clarify exactly what Mr. Mayo needs to do on the record so that he – if he's listening out there, he hears it.

So I reviewed the permit comments yesterday, and they need to bring in a level one site plan – Level one site plan. That figures the configuration of the parking out to as close to meeting the city standards as physically possible on the site, and to see if rearranging it might – not having so many curb cuts, whatever, might actually get another space in there. Okay, and he has 90 days. That's an administrative thing.

Look, we may have some flexibility, you know, and if they get a parking attendant there who can do some of the parking, we can have some more flexibility with respect to maybe another spot. You know, we can – there's things we can do.

Well, you're talking – you're throwing out other things, though, for the specific direction this evening because we're taking a vote.

So a level one site plan amendment, then to try to maximize the site, try to find an on-street space possibly on the side. Bless you. Park? What else?

And we'll look to see whether or not we can do that other –

That's what – what this is about, what we're asking him to do. A plan, and he'll have to bring forward a plan that's going to show how he's going to enforce internally that his employees are not parking on site. Right. And I think he should come up with an off-site parking agreement. I agree. A tri-party agreement. I think that was going to be my last point.

It would be a tri-party. 90 days is a long time, and some of these people seemed very happy to help. So I think it's a good idea.

And, you know, particularly that would allow the employees to have a place to park and they can walk the half a block or whatever it is. I mean, I think –

Exactly.

Like those two would basically go together.

But there is – you know, we have the space on the back there. There may be another spot the city could work with to cue some of the money that we've created to actually create a parking spot in one of those rights-of-way area. I don't know. I don't know. There's some flexibility.

Those things we'll bring back to you. I don't think they should be part of the vote. Right. You know, we do want to help. We do want to fix this situation. But I think for purposes of the vote, it would be just a motion to postpone for 90 days and require Mr. Mayo to prepare the level one site plan amendment, stripe the parking lot, and come up with an agreement to ensure employees are not parking on site and to provide off-site parking.

So moved.

Great. We got to – Second. Okay. All – it's quasi-judicial, so we're going to – also, we – and part of the motion is we're postponing the –

We did the postponement. That says – Right. Okay. So – 90 days.

All in – I'll call the roll, please.

Deputy Vice Mayor Margaret. Yes. Commissioner Malaga. Yes. Commissioner Cazell. Yes. Vice Mayor Burns. Yes. Mayor Kearney.

Yes.

Motion passed.

Great. We are done.

That's done.

We don't have closing comments or special meetings.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.