Commissioner Sarnoff to be deposed by Mr. Moe's?

It's been a slow process, but it looks like Mr. Moe's may get the legal deposition they are looking for.

On April 16, 2010, Mr. Moe's filed a lawsuit against the City of Miami in the circuit court in Miami-Dade County seeking to reverse District Commissioner Marc Sarnoff’s initiative of rolling back the operating hours from 5 am closing time to 3 am for all bars and restaurants in Coconut Grove, while leaving the rest of the City and District to have closing times of 5 am, 7 am and some even 24 hours. Many felt, and still feel that this has hurt Coconut Grove and business was lost village-wide because of this inability to compete with the rest of the City.

John El-Masry, owner of Mr. Moe's has always felt that this is a violation of the Constitution of the United States and The State of Florida Constitution. The case was moved to federal court, at the request of the City of Miami, which, if sustained, would have denied the Miami-Dade court the right to resolve this issue of local interest.

On December 16, 2010, the federal court denied this request and sent the case back to the county, which allowed Mr. Moe's to have the opportunity to sue for $10 million claiming that the Commissioner's initiative was illegal and caused major damages and lost revenues to Mr. Moe's.

Yesterday, June 20, 2011, the Dade County Circuit Court ordered Commissioner Sarnoff to sit for a deposition in this cause. Previously, Sarnoff had been subpoenaed by Mr. Moe’s to give deposition testimony in the lawsuit, but the City filed motions to block that deposition. After hearing the arguments of both the city attorney and a private attorney hired by Commissioner Sarnoff, the state court judge ordered that the deposition be taken.

Mr. Moe's now believes that, "Commissioner Sarnoff wants to avoid the five to six hour taped deposition that he will appeal the decision to the appellate court, attempting to further delay the inevitable deposition which will also force the September, 2011 trial date to be extended until after the November election."

Mr. Moe's remains the only business still open for business that was adversely affected by the time rollback, and the only restaurant in Coconut Grove affected by the rollback. There were five in operation at the time of the rollback.