Churchill’s End from p7 prospective tenant will use the name Churchill’s and that the pub will reopen with live music. But as far as closing the deal and signing the tenant to a lease, Kauderer says, “I don’t know.” He also says he has received sev- eral offers from prospective buyers he de- clined to identify. When asked what the potential buyers intend to do with the prop- erty, Kauderer was cryptic: “Hard to say.” Pandemic Disharmony In 2014, Kauderer bought Churchill’s for $800,000 from its previous landlord, Dave Daniels, who founded the English-style pub in 1979. Under Daniels’ reign, Churchill’s became known as the primo stomping ground for local punk and heavy metal bands, as well as a morning watering hole where fútbol aficiona- dos could catch European soccer matches. Kauderer tapped District Live partners Franklin Dale and Pablo Barg to keep Churchill’s rocking out. For nearly six years, Kauderer, Dale, and Barg seemed to be on the same page as far as maintaining the pub’s mu- sical legacy while also refining some of the venue’s rougher edges. But when local gov- ernments ordered the closing of local bars and nightclubs to slow the spread of the coronavi- rus in March 2020, the shutdown triggered a toxic unraveling of the business relationship. Dale and Barg accused Kauderer of back- stabbing them by sabotaging their efforts to re- open Churchill’s when lockdowns were eased. They claimed their landlord accepted a $149,000 federal Economic Injury Disaster loan meant to cover operational expenses in- cluding missed rent payments and then depos- ited the funds into a real estate shell company’s bank account that wasn’t affiliated with the pub’s business. Additionally, Churchill’s Pub LLC received two federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans totaling $102,120, but Dale and Barg allege that neither they nor em- ployees and independent contractors on pub’s payroll, received any of that money. After District Live hosted some outdoor events at Churchill’s in early 2021, state regu- lators suspended the pub’s liquor license at Kauderer’s behest. “He made the decision to strangle the business, making it damn near impossible for us to operate,” Dale tells New Times. “He tried to body us during a pandemic, and we fought back.” In court filings associated with their evic- tion lawsuit, Kauderer and his business asso- ciate, Donita Leavitt, alleged that District Live owed thousands of dollars to liquor distribu- tors, failed to obtain liability insurance for the premises or pay monthly rent on the property, and had been in arrears on monthly payments to use the liquor license since November 2019, four months prior to the pandemic’s onset. (Leavitt is the manager for Churchill’s Pub, the corporation that holds the liquor license.) Kauderer denies that he diverted govern- ment funds away from Churchill’s or set out to undermine District Live’s principals.”Pretty much everything [Dale] told the court was false,” Kauderer says. “The previous tenant also said that I stole PPP money. That was a blatant lie.” 88 Accusations and Acrimony Dale, who also accuses Kauderer of stiffing him out of $128,000 in consulting fees, submitted Photo by Alexander Oliva bank statements and text messages to the court as documentation that his landlord improperly funneled the $149,000 loan from Churchill’s Pub to another Kauderer-owned company, Little Haiti Development Partners. Kauderer scoffs at the allegation, explain- ing that the pandemic relief funds went to pay taxes and other bills tied to the property, including payroll. “The previous tenant claims he never received anything as far as PPP money and that we took it all,” Kauderer says. “Well, I have his W-2, and he was the largest recipient of PPP money.” He declined to provide a copy of the W-2, explaining that he was unsure whether it was legal to share a tax document containing Dale’s private information. In a string of emails, Dale vehemently dis- puted Kauderer’s claim, insisting that his documentation shows that no COVID relief money went to Churchill’s, him, or any ven- dors. Dale shared Chase Bank statements for Churchill’s Pub that show $149,000 was transferred out of the bar’s business account into the business account of Little Haiti De- velopment Partners on June 12, 2020. (Dale also has a website, Churchills.Miami, where he has uploaded the aforementioned state- ments along with other documentation of his feud with Kauderer.) He claims Leavitt confirmed the misuse of government funds at a July 1, 2021, eviden- tiary hearing. (According to the transcript, Leavitt said she transferred the $149,000 and that the funds were used to pay a delinquent mortgage. She also testified that about $17,000 was applied as rent abatements for District Live.) The fight for control of Churchill’s offi- cially ended on July 20, 2021, when Miami- Dade Circuit Court Judge Reemberto Diaz granted final judgment for eviction against District Live on the grounds that the com- pany had failed to deposit $205,000 in alleged back rent into a court registry. A few days later, the Miami-Dade Police Department executed an eviction warrant against District Live, which lost its appeal a month later, according to court records. The case remains open because Diaz has not issued a final ruling on a counterclaim filed by District Live, which Kauderer has moved to dismiss. Dale points out that at the conclusion of the July 1 hearing, the judge didn’t rule on the amounts owed for use of the liquor license but wouldn’t reconsider compelling District Live to deposit the contested funds into the court registry. Dale claims Diaz failed to fol- low a Florida law that permits tenants to use rent credits to fulfill the requirement to place disputed rent amounts into a court registry. “He dismissed that Kauderer’s actions had any impact on our ability to pay rent for the premises,” Dale says. “Our attorney also chal- lenged Kauderer’s ledger of rents due, but the judge was not interested.” Club for Sale Though the books are closed on Kauderer’s conflict with District Live, the property owner still faces multiple lawsuits and judg- ments against him and various corporations totaling more than $10 million in mortgage debt tied to Churchill’s and neighboring properties in Little Haiti. In May, Chemtov Mortgage Group won a $7.5 million foreclo- sure judgment against Kauderer and Little Haiti Development Partners. Chemtov sold rights to the judgment to Little Haiti Gateway Holdings, another lender that sued Kauderer for nonpayment of a separate mortgage. Churchill’s had been set to be sold at a foreclosure auction in January. But Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Mi- chael Hanzman canceled the sale and re- versed the foreclosure judgment at Little Haiti Gateway’s request so the lender and Kauderer could negotiate a settlement, ac- cording to court records. Over the past ten months, Kauderer has been on the hunt for a new tenant. Court re- cords show that he has also run into legal trouble with a lawyer he’d hired to draw up a lease agreement and a liquor license sale agreement with an unnamed group: On Au- gust 29, Miami attorney George Aslanian sued Kauderer in small claims court for $5,800 in unpaid legal fees. Kauderer faces multiple lawsuits and judgments against him totaling more than $10 million in mortgage debt tied to Churchill’s and neighboring properties. Kauderer declined to comment about Asla- nian’s complaint or the foreclosure lawsuits. More recently, in a blog post published late last month on The Jitney, J.J. Colagrande cited “multiple sources” in asserting that Churchill’s has a new operator and that “word on the street” is that the unnamed party will reopen the pub — but not as a live- music venue. Dale, meanwhile, sent New Times screen- shots of a text exchange with a person he claims knows Kauderer’s prospective new tenant; the messages suggest that live music will be part of the equation, but not necessar- ily with the familiar Churchill’s spirit. “They put a lot of money into the place,” the person texted. “Of course they [have] no intention of making it like Churchill’s was. But they want to make it a live venue at least.” Dale says any tenant who signs a lease on the property will have to address code viola- tions his ex-landlord ignored and will face the prospect of paying rent on a building that’s producing zero income. “The majority of real estate developers will see it as a knockdown, not a bar, considering the capital and time in- vestment required to open,” Dale says, pre- dicting that “Churchill’s is not reopening.” Loose, the punk rock drummer, says the pub’s demise seems inevitable in a city where real estate speculators are constantly redevel- oping neighborhoods. “Churchill’s was great because it was an anomaly,” he says. “When development in the Design District and Wyn- wood got going, it was eventually going to creep over. There is certainly a little sadness there, but we all knew this was gonna happen.” He recalls taking the stage for the first time in 1991 with a band called Chicken Head. “I’ve never been to any other place where you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted,” he marvels. “It was pirate land.” [email protected] MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 NOVEMBER 3-9, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
