Miami Seaquarium attorney pushes back on county’s eviction suit: ‘Something smells fishy’

MIAMI – One day after Miami-Dade County sued the operators of the Miami Seaquarium seeking its eviction from county-owned property on Virginia Key, an attorney representing the marine park excoriated county officials for trying to force it off the site.

Experts said Tuesday’s filing started a five-day clock for the company to file a response.

Speaking during a news conference Wednesday, attorney Hilton Napoleon, representing MS Leisure Company, a subsidiary of The Dolphin Company, called the county’s claims of animal welfare and property maintenance issues “frivolous” and “misleading.”

Saying “we take care of our animals,” Napoleon went on to say the company inherited an already-aging marine mammal park and that improvements have been made.

“We have put in millions of dollars into the facility,” he said, noting that that the kind of robust capital improvements the facility needs takes time.

Napoleon also said, “We have cleared every single non-compliance from (the U.S. Department of Agriculture).”

The company also showed examples of animal care.

“A human being in a hospital does not receive the 24-hour, around-the-clock care like our animals do,” Napoleon said.

Company representatives showed a PowerPoint version of what Local 10 News already showed you during an exclusive April tour of the facility.

And they addressed the most recent death of an animal at the facility.

“These animals die from natural causes,” Dolphin Company U.S. Parks Executive Director Edwin Gonzalez said. “The sea lion had an abdominal issue, it died. It happens to animals like it happens to human beings.”

Related: Amid possible eviction, what will happen to animals at Miami Seaquarium?

Gonzalez said the county’s actions have had a financial impact on the park, saying ticket sales are down 40%.

“All their actions are hurting us financially,” he said. “We are not closed. We are open.”

The county’s suit came in the wake of a series of searing USDA inspection reports, which had documented animal welfare violations and repeat facility failures — placing the company, the county argues in its lawsuit, in breach of its lease agreement.

“All of them have been corrected,” Napoleon said. “Let’s call a spade a spade. The county was contacted by people about the land. That is what this is about. Nothing else. It’s not about the animals. It’s not about the facilities. Something smells fishy.”

But for months, Miami-Dade leaders have insisted that the future of the site has yet to be determined — that they would “plot” a new future for the site after the county gets through the eviction process.

“We are a long ways away from determining what happens to the site after that,” Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado said during a March 7 news conference, noting that there are a series of restrictions in the property deed limiting what can be done with the site, which is considered parkland.

Regalado’s district includes Virginia Key.

Tricia Nicewicz, a former Seaquarium employee who’s since become an attorney and critic of the park, disputed the notion that the park’s issues have been fixed.

She said that “the county’s recent eviction filing builds a condemning narrative against MS Leisure Company.”

Nicewicz said one recent USDA report does not erase a history of issues at the park.

“This is a focused report which means that the USDA did not tour the entire facility nor does a single compliant report negate the two-year history of USDA reports that show inspection after inspection since the beginning of MS Leisure ownership, the park has failed to care for its animals in egregious ways that have resulted in animal sickness, injury and death,” she told Local 10 News.

She said, “These aren’t one-off issues, but, rather, a pattern of neglect.”

As for the company’s next steps, Napoleon telegraphed that the company’s next move is likely a filing in federal court.

Legal analyst David Weinstein, who is not involved in the case, explained what might happen.

“The Seaquarium will most likely file for a temporary restraining order, one that they withdrew before because they said they were negotiating with the county in order to stay in place,” he said.

Weinstein calls the matter a “very complicated issue.”

“They (the Seaquarium) are saying that there are certain federal requirements that are not being met by Miami-Dade County and they are being prevented from doing so by the county’s inaction,” he said. “Yet in the eviction proceeding, the county is saying ‘Look, we went in there, we inspected, your vets are not treating the animals the right way,’ the conditions in the county’s words are somewhat ‘deplorable,’ ‘We gave you a chance to fix that and correct it, you didn’t, so now we are going to evict you, because you are not keeping up your end of the bargain on our lease.’”

Napoleon said a federal filing could come as soon as Thursday.