Trump not wanted at own Florida resort
Neighbours don’t like him living at Mar-a-lago
PALM BEACH, FLA. •When he was forced out of the White House in January, Donald Trump thought he had left elections behind, for another four years at least. But one month on, having relocated to Mar-a-lago, his private club in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Trump faces another vote that could affect his future.
The former U.S. president’s neighbours on the southern Florida barrier island, who usually are known for settling disputes discreetly, are orchestrating a public campaign to bar him from living in his Mar-a-lago club. Many plan to let their once-coveted club memberships lapse.
Some of them are now eyeing a local council election in March, when a new mayor and two new council members will be installed who may be more sympathetic to their cause.
Many neighbours say Trump’s residency breaks an agreement he struck with Palm Beach in the 1990s.
When he transformed the beachfront mansion from a private home into a members’ club he assured the town he would not live on the estate.
But Trump appears to have found a loophole in the agreement — claiming that as president of the club, he is technically a member of staff and exempt from the residency restriction.
Councillors currently are reluctant to pick a fight with a man as litigious as Trump, but some locals hope an overhaul in the town’s management could alter their stance.
One Palm Beach homeowner who has joined the fight against Trump is Glenn Zeitz, a prominent lawyer who has owned a property on the island since 2005.
Zeitz told The Daily Telegraph his concern was that if the town made an exception for Trump it would “open the floodgates” to other club owners. Palm Beach is a town full of “the haves and the have-mores,” Zeitz joked.
“They’re used to having their own way, and if you do it for one person then it establishes precedent,” he said.
Zeitz, who spent six years locked in litigation with Trump and his Atlantic City casino expansion in the ’90s, says he is well aware the former president “plays hardball.” But he believes some Palm Beach residents may still object to Trump’s residency in Mar-a-lago in April, when the issue is next given a public airing.
Laurence Leamer, a longtime Palm Beach resident who has written a book on Mar-a-lago, agrees that Trump’s habit of violating local ordinances and launching legal action has not endeared him to his neighbours.
“That’s not the Palm Beach way, this is an overly civilized place if anything, where people settle disputes in a very kind of sedate way,” he said.
Trump’s presence is no longer as obtrusive as it once was. Where once a small army of Secret Service agents blockaded the road leading up to the former president’s club, a steady stream of sports cars and four-wheel drives are now free to pass right by the resort’s entrance.
Insiders say Trump’s new daily routine has not varied much since he settled permanently in Palm Beach. He rarely quits the private sphere of his club.
Mar-a-lago has also become Trump’s base for plotting his future in politics.
“Florida will be the headquarters of the ‘MAGA’ universe as long as Trump lives in Mar-a-lago,” said Dave Aronberg, the Democrat state attorney for Palm Beach.
Trump’s lawyer John Marion has defended the former president’s right to live at Mar-a-lago.
He has also cautioned those who sought to oust Trump, suggesting that “on the remote possibility they were somehow successful in preventing him from living” at Mar-a-lago, Trump could cause more problems for his neighbours by choosing to move to “where they live and where he owns several homes.”