Gun show willing to leave War Memorial
The operator of the gun show at the War Memorial Auditorium said he’s willing to move to another location if he can find something suitable.
If not, he said, he’ll go to court to fight the city of Fort Lauderdale. City officials reiterated Monday their plans to stop allowing gun shows at the city-owned auditorium in Holiday Park after November.
“They can stop me tomorrow if they want. That’s their prerogative,” said Khaled Akkawi of Florida Gun Shows
Inc. “And we live in a society where we have rights, too, and there’s a court system, and I have a right to litigate.”
Akkawi said City Commissioner Ben Sorensen has been helping him look for a new location for the show, which for at least 30 years has been staged at the auditorioum, east of U.S. 1 and south of Sunrise Boulevard.
Akkawi said he’d like to hold the gun and knife weekend marketplace at the Broward County Convention Center, off Southeast 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale, for example. But the convention center has had a policy for years against allowing gun shows, said Stacy Ritter, CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
A representative at the center’s management company, SMG World, couldn’t be reached Monday for comment on the policy. Akkawi said he was told that guns are not allowed on Port Everglades property, including at the convention center. Ritter said no request has been made to her, and she would follow policy set by the Broward County Commission.
“Believe me,” Akkawi said, “I want to work it out amicably with everyone and be friends and move on, but I’m not going to give up my business, either.”
The show’s latest annual agreement gives it license to hold six shows in 2018, after paying the city $30,240. The remaining shows are Aug. 11-12, Sept. 29-30, and Nov. 17-18. City Manager Lee Feldman said the gun show pays the same rates as other groups that use the auditorium.
Gun show attorney Michael Woodbury said the show has dates blocked out with the city until 2025 and a right to remain there even after the current agreement expires in November. He cited a 1994 Tampa case in which he said the judge said that “the ultimate form of regulation is refusal to lease a city owned piece of property, and there’s actually a First Amendment commercial speech violation.” He added: “The one thing I can promise you ... is that it would be a litigated issue.”
Interim City Attorney Alain Boileau said the blocked-out future dates don’t give Akkawi legal rights to use the venue. No deposit has been made, he said. He noted that the Tampa case settled out of court, with no final ruling. He said the city would be on its strongest legal footing if it stops hosting all shows at the auditorium.
That remains a possibility. Commissioners aren’t sure what to do with the auditorium when the gun shows end.
The city loses money on War Memorial, Parks and Recreation Director Phil Thornburg said last week, when commissioners postponed a vote to spent $842,000 renovating it.
Commissioner Heather Moraitis suggested the city consider demolishing the 1950s building and using the property for athletic fields, particularly after a recent citizen survey found people saying the city isn’t a good place to raise children.
“I’d probably say we don’t need the building anymore, and we should just remove it,” she said.
Commissioner Steve Glassman, a historic preservationist, balked at that idea. He said there’s new interest in the venue, and commissioners were advised Monday that the Florida Panthers broached the idea of using two-thirds of the facility for childrens’ hockey training.
“We’re just not generating enough revenue on our public buildings, especially if they lie within parks,” Glassman said. “I’m thrilled people want to come together and talk about uses.”
Florida Gun Shows holds 43 shows a year in eight cities in Florida. Akkawi said he follows the same laws about gun sales that stores do. Gun purchasers who don’t have concealed-weapons permits have to wait five days to pick up a gun purchased at the gun show, he said, and they retrieve it from his Shoot Straight store on State Road 7, he said.
His War Memorial gun show isn’t the only one in Broward. And guns can also be purchased in stores or in private transactions. But the War Memorial gun show, highly visible and nestled in a popular park, has drawn opposition for years.
After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School murders in February, the controversy took on new urgency. The city was in the midst of elections, and an anti-gun show majority was elected. City commissioners and Mayor Dean Trantalis have said the gun show is inappropriate for a park setting.
“The city is not trying to prevent the sale or transfer of firearms in the city,” Trantalis said when the issue was debated in April. “The city is just saying that the location is inappropriate.”
State law prohibits local governments from enacting gun laws.
After the Parkland shooting, the show voluntarily canceled its March show. The shows resumed last weekend. Several thousand people attend the shows, including children.