Safety Cited as Grammys Moved to L.A.

Organizers of the Latin Grammy Awards said Monday they will shift this year’s event, originally scheduled to occur here in three weeks, to the Los Angeles area because of fears that protests by anti-communist Cuban exiles might turn violent.

C. Michael Greene, president and chief executive of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and the Latin Recording Academy, said Grammy officials had no choice but to pull the show out of Florida once they felt they could not guarantee the safety of artists and guests who would be attending, especially those coming from Cuba.

“Our nominees from Cuba would have been singled out, and potentially there could have been major risks for them,” Greene said in an interview. “Instead of it being the happiest day of [an honoree’s] life, it could have been one of the most perilous.”

He added that Grammy officials also were worried about reports that demonstrators had secured tickets to the event and were planning to disrupt it.

The second annual awards gala for Latin music, which was supposed to unfold Sept. 11 at American Airlines Arena in downtown Miami, instead will take place at the Forum, the Lakers’ former home in Inglewood, Greene said.

The decision, a public relations black eye and a major economic blow for Miami, was attacked by exile groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the safety issue a smoke screen. The shift came after event organizers and Cuban American groups were unable to agree about where the exiles could demonstrate.

The exiles angrily oppose the participation of musicians from Cuba, which they contend would transform the internationally televised event into a propaganda billboard for Cuban President Fidel Castro’s regime.

“We’re not against the Grammys in Miami, but against artists controlled, manipulated and promoted by Castro,” said Emilio Izquierdo Jr., a former Cuban political prisoner who lives here. “Castro wants to be in the entertainment business to make money to prolong his regime of brutality; his police state. And that’s the main reason we ask the right to protest.”

Protest Area Was Too Close to Suit Some

Among the entertainers from the Caribbean island nation nominated for Latin Grammy awards this year are jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, popular salsa singer Issac Delgado and singer Omara Portuondo.

On Sunday, a coalition of 67 Cuban American groups agreed to a city-brokered proposal for a demonstration site about 200 feet from the arena, Miami Deputy Police Chief Bobby Cheatham said. That location, across Biscayne Boulevard from the arena, wasn’t far enough away for Grammy officials, who reportedly wanted protesters kept at least 600 feet back.

Greene accused Miami city and police officials of reneging on an agreement he said was reached two months ago concerning where the security perimeter should be.

“We were obviously taken aback,” he said.

Greene said Grammy officials especially were concerned after reviewing tapes of protests that occurred in Miami during the Oct. 9, 1999, performance of the visiting Cuban group Los Van Van. More than 3,000 protesters showed up, and some pelted the concert-goers with soda cans, eggs and rocks.

“Having to run that gauntlet is demeaning at best, and dangerous at worst,” Greene said.

The ACLU, which has sided with the Cuban American exile organizations in defending their constitutional freedoms, accused Latin Grammy organizers of using the safety issue as an excuse.

“The only reason for leaving Miami is Mr. Greene’s concern for the TV image of the event, not safety and security,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU for Florida. “The people we represented from the Cuban exile community made numerous compromises, and Michael Greene and the Latin Grammys were unwilling to make any.”

Cheatham said the final plan was to bus in guests to the AmericanAirlines Arena who otherwise would have walked in from parking lots, and to provide them with a police escort.

“We felt that it was adequate. Not ideal, but adequate. If there were no confrontations or inappropriate behavior on either side, hey, it would have been a perfect thing.”

No-Win Situation for Miami

Many leaders of the Cuban American groups were incensed at Greene’s suggestion that the demonstrations they were planning could have turned ugly and resulted in harm to others.

“Our constitutional right is to demonstrate where the authorities put us, and that’s exactly what we were going to do,” said Irma Garcia of the Bloc of Political Prisoners. “We were going to stand where we were told to stand.”

“We have a history of a lot of protests, but we have never killed any policemen,” Izquierdo said. “We have never destroyed any grocery store, we have never damaged any property.” Many residents of Miami’s Little Havana area believe the troubles at the Los Van Van concert cited by Greene were fomented by Cuban undercover agents trying to discredit the exiles.

The decision to shift the location of the ceremony promises to have unfavorable economic fallout for Miami, and also may damage the image of the Cuban American organizations. According to Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, the musical program was supposed to have funneled as much as $35 million into the area’s economy.

Latin Grammy Awards organizers originally asked Miami to be the host city last year, but civic leaders here declined because of a county ordinance that barred doing business with Cuba. So the inaugural ceremony took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Staples was unavailable this year because it was booked for a Madonna concert.

After the county ordinance was struck down, Penelas and other local luminaries ardently wooed Greene and his associates. Those efforts were supported by leaders of the richest and most influential Cuban American organization, the Cuban American National Foundation, who were worried that some past acts by Cuban American militants had made the community seem narrow-minded and fanatical to the rest of the country.

“Our enemy is not Los Van Van. It’s the regime of Fidel Castro,” said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American foundation. The Grammys’ departure hardly will aid those efforts to burnish the image of Cuban Americans. In fact, the dispute again exposed dissension in Miami’s largest and most influential ethnic community concerning how hard a political line to take.

“We’re saddened that the people who fought so hard to bring the Grammys to Miami, this beautiful city, have decided to take it away just to prevent our right to demonstrate,” the Bloc of Political Prisoners’ Irma Garcia said.

Greene told The Times that Monday was the “drop-dead day” to decide whether to proceed as planned or pull the plug on the Miami venue.

The decision to move back to Los Angeles was made, he said, after Florida law enforcement officials reported they could not guarantee “an adequate level of security,” even at an alternate South Florida site: the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise, in Broward County northwest of here.

To move the ceremony on such short notice, he said, will be a logistical feat that will cost the Academy an additional $400,000 to $600,000. Greene said several artists and guests had expressed concerns about their safety in the last few days as news spread about the protest actions being planned in Miami.

“It’s our hope that the political environment will change in the near future and we’ll be able to go back there,” Greene said in Los Angeles. “But the whole scene down there is very unpredictable.”

The debacle in Miami sparked expressions of dismay from two Latin music industry figures involved in bringing Cuban acts to the United States.

“I’m ashamed of being a Cuban sometimes in this city,” said Hugo Cancio, the Miami-based concert promoter credited with being the first to bring a Cuban artist to this city when Delgado, the salsa singer, performed here in 1997. “Listen, we don’t own this town, even though we may act like we do. The real shame here is that my culture, my music, is being manipulated by both sides of the Florida Straits for everybody’s political agenda.”

Jimmy Maslon, owner of Los Angeles-based Ahi-Nama Music, the country’s leading independent label for Cuban music, said Miami hosting the Latin Grammys would have had been of historic significance.

“Ultimately, I would like to see the Grammys held in Miami, because it’s the gateway to Latin America,” said Maslon, who had just returned from a business trip to Cuba. “At least they didn’t get the chance to disrupt everything this time.”

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ahlburg reported from Florida, Gurza from Los Angeles.