Miami Counts Up the Losses After It Loses Latin Grammys

Rashne Desai, owner of a trendy design district cafe here, may have been born in India, but she adores salsa music. So she had been looking forward to the Latin Grammys and was dismayed Tuesday because they won’t be taking place in Miami after all.

“Just because you have a Cuban lobby, does that mean you can forget about the rest of the people?” the Bombay-born Desai asked in annoyance after serving her lunchtime customers. “What about the big picture?”

Greater Miami, home to 2.2 million people, still was reeling from the decision by Latin Grammy organizers Monday afternoon to shift the Sept. 11 musical awards show back to Los Angeles. The pullout is expected to cost this area’s economy $30 million in lost revenue, said William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.

More than 10,000 attendees had been expected at the Grammys, and businesses from hotels and restaurants to taxi and limousine companies were gearing up to serve them.

“Everything that Los Angeles has now gained, we have lost,” said Jim Samuels, manager of the Shore Club, a luxury resort on Miami Beach.

The aborted show was yet more confirmation of the volatile and central role played by Cuban American politics in the multiethnic crazy quilt that is Miami. The Grammys decamped because Cuban exile groups insisted on their right to demonstrate across the street from the event, which was uncomfortably close for the organizers.

The Cuban American groups, seconded by Miami Mayor Joe Carollo (himself of Cuban origin), insisted that the issue was one of guaranteeing constitutionally enshrined freedoms. But other Miamians, and the city’s most influential daily newspaper, dismissed that argument as shortsighted stupidity that has cost all people of Miami dearly.

“The passions that move this community have once again proved too strong for reason,” the Miami Herald editorialized Tuesday. “Ironically, those who wanted to protest against Cuba’s intolerant government achieved the opposite result: Miami’s Cuban exile community will once again be tarred as intolerant with a broad brush in the national and international media.

“Fidel Castro must be enjoying this.”

Last year, the rest of the nation looked on as angry Miamians of Cuban origin marched by the tens of thousands to protest the reunification of 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez with his father, and the child’s eventual return to Cuba. The city manager was fired, the police chief quit and divided, unruly Miami earned itself a new moniker: an American “banana republic.”

Keenly aware of the damage done to the collective reputation of Cuban Americans, a new, younger generation of civic leaders lobbied this year to lure the Latin Grammys to Miami--and until Monday, it looked as though they had succeeded. But when crunch time came, many of the exiles preferred no Grammys to an event where their anti-communist utterances might have gone undetected by attendees and the television audience.

“Freedom of expression has two faces,” said Mariela Ferretti, media coordinator of the Cuban American National Foundation. “The flip side is that if you don’t agree with something, you have the right to protest.”

Although this city’s 650,000 Cuban Americans constitute its largest Latino population, Spanish speakers of other nationalities, including Colombians, Puerto Ricans and Nicaraguans, have been on the rise in recent decades. Many of these Latinos object to the power and influence of Cuban Americans, the incendiary rhetoric of some exile groups and the frequent injection of Cuba-related issues into the affairs of municipal government.

The clout of the exiles had kept the inaugural Grammys, held last year at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, out of Miami because of a county ordinance prohibiting any business with Cuba. The ordinance was later struck down in the courts.

“This is so sad, and the issue is just politics,” Maria Elena Periera, 42, said Tuesday. The Colombian-born executive office assistant had been looking forward to seeing some of her favorite Latin artists here at the Grammys, including Puerto Rican salsa singer Gilberto Santa Rosa.

On the way in to work Tuesday morning, Periera listened to local Spanish-language radio stations. The news broadcasts focused on little else but the Grammys. She laughed at Cuban exile leaders, calling them blowhards who know how to talk but do little else.

In its editorial, the Herald accused Carollo of “wrapping himself in the Cuban flag with inflammatory rhetoric” to try to ensure reelection. At a news conference at City Hall on Monday night, Carollo said: “Anybody can point a finger at me. What I’ve stood up for are the 1st Amendment rights of the Constitution.”

With the departure of the Latin Grammys goes the chance for this city, its beaches and other attractions to be seen by an international television audience of up to 800 million, Talbert said. “We just don’t have the resources to buy that kind of network time, prime time.”

For Miami area hotels, restaurants, suppliers of food and drink, limousine companies and other businesses, the losses are much more tangible.

At the Shore Club, Sony, a major player in Latin music, had booked a 400-person dinner party, Samuels said. During the Grammys, honchos in the Latin music world and their guests also were expected to occupy up to 80 of the 130 available rooms, including a $15,000-a-night suite.

“Now we have a very short window to replace the event, and that probably won’t happen, to be honest,” Samuels said. “And just think of the trickle-down effect. Everybody is geared up for functions, for parties. And suddenly there is nothing to replace it. It even trickles down to the employees, who won’t be getting maybe so many gratuities.”

Ironically, the third Source Music Hip-Hop Awards, yet another annual pat on the back by the music industry to itself, were held for the first time Monday evening on Miami Beach and went off without a hitch. Last year’s ceremony, in Pasadena, disintegrated into a brawl.

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