Miami-Dade serves Seaquarium with eviction notice

Miami-Dade County on Monday moved forward on its promise to evict the Miami Seaquarium, sending a notice of eviction to the attraction’s parent company, the Dolphin Company.

In a joint statement, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Commissioner Raquel Regalado said it is their hope that the company voluntarily vacates but that the county is prepared to pursue the eviction in court if necessary.

That latest development comes after the Miami Seaquarium on Friday filed suit against Miami-Dade County to block the eviction from its waterfront home since the 1950s.

Facing a Sunday deadline to surrender the waterfront location it leases from Miami-Dade County, the Seaquarium asked a federal judge on Friday to block the eviction action launched six weeks ago by Levine Cava over alleged endangerment of captive animals there. The litigation offers new insight into the financial challenges the park faces — including fallout from the loss of its former star attraction, Lolita the killer whale.

Now the Seaquarium and its Mexico-based parent face the twin challenges of an eviction fight and trying to keep ticket sales afloat at an attraction that has seen a sharp drop in revenue since the Dolphin Company took over in 2022, according to county figures.

The Seaquarium links part of its revenue drop on the loss of sales tied to Lolita, which the Dolphin Company agreed to retire from performing as part of the Levine Cava administration’s requirements for taking over the park. Ending the shows and sales of merchandise tied to the orca accounted for about a quarter of the park’s revenue, the Dolphin Company said in its lawsuit.

Lolita died in August, a time that coincided with some of the new owner’s worst months financially, according to revenue figures released by the county’s Parks Department in response to a records request by the Miami Herald. The Seaquarium pays a portion of its revenue as rent, and reports from the park show sales dropped 46% in August.

That was the worst month in a rough year, according to the reports, with sales down an average 27% between March 2023 and February 2024 compared to 12 months earlier.

READ MORE: Lolita, the Miami Seaquarium orca, died Friday as hopes grew she would leave for the sea

The Seaquarium declined to comment on the revenue figures, but its lawsuit also claims economic damage from the county’s eviction effort.

“The Dolphin Company seeks compensation for the economic damages incurred due to the county’s actions, which have adversely affected the financial stability and expansion potential of the Miami Seaquarium,” the company said in a statement released Friday.

In moving to terminate the Seaquarium’s lease on March 7, Levine Cava cited a string of alarming reports by federal veterinary inspectors reporting issues with the park’s care of captive dolphins, sea lions, birds and other animals, along with local building-code violations Miami-Dade issued against the Seaquarium for not repairing its aging facilities.

READ MORE: Miami-Dade County moves to evict Miami Seaquarium, gives park until April to vacate

The suit filed in U.S. District Court claims the Dolphin Company, a chain of marine-mammal attractions, will suffer $35 million in damages if forced to vacate its waterfront location on Biscayne Bay. The suit seeks a restraining order against Miami-Dade to stop the county from seizing park animals covered by federal regulations or captivity permits, as well as an injunction against the county trying to take over the property.

“If the County precludes [the Dolphin Company] from entering the premises, the animals will undoubtedly suffer and will likely perish,” the suit states.

The suit also claims the Seaquarium is a victim of a vendetta by the Levine Cava administration, quoting an unnamed county employee as telling a park executive that the mayor’s office “hates you.”

“The lawsuit includes allegations of actions taken by Miami-Dade County that have unjustly harmed the reputation of the Miami Seaquarium and staff members,” the Seaquarium said in a press release Friday morning.

The Seaquarium has accused Miami-Dade of focusing on failings in federal animal-care inspections, but not acknowledging steps the facility’s management has taken to cure the violations and remain in compliance with U.S. laws governing captive animals used for entertainment.

The two sides in the eviction fight were once allies in an effort to move Lolita to an open-water sanctuary, a highlight of the takeover plans announced when the Dolphin Company assumed control of the Seaquarium lease. The suit quotes a Levine Cava press conference touting the Lolita plan as a “momentous announcement.”

In a joint statement Friday afternoon, Levine Cava and the county commissioner representing the area, Raquel Regalado, said the Sunday deadline remains and that the county expects the Seaquarium to safely remove its animals from the 38-acre campus.

“As we approach this deadline, it is our hope that the Dolphin Company is taking the necessary steps to vacate the premises,” the statement read, “and to ensure that the transition is done in a safe and orderly manner, especially for the animals under their care.”

Last week, Levine Cava’s office sent a letter to Eduardo Albor, chairman and CEO of the Dolphin Company, with a list of recent alleged lease violations, including the park refusing to turn over paperwork from federal inspections and insisting on filming a parks employee’s walk through of the county-owned property.

“The circumstances indicate an ongoing pattern of the Lessee’s failure and refusal to maintain the Seaquarium’s premises and animals in a safe condition that complies with all applicable laws and with the unambiguous terms of the Lease,” Jimmy Morales, chief operating officer under Levine Cava, wrote in the April 11 letter.

Also this week, the United States Department of Agriculture released a report from January alleging the Seaquarium was trying to hinder routine visits by federal veterinary inspectors. A Jan. 9 visit resulted in a nearly five-hour delay for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to enter the grounds and examine animal conditions and paperwork, according to the report, while Seaquarium managers consulted with lawyers. The Seaquarium also insisted on recording the inspectors’ work, including conversations with park employees, the report said.

“Staff members were interviewed on camera, but during the inspection, staff members confided in inspectors that what they stated on camera was not the whole truth as they were not comfortable to be forthcoming with all the relevant details,” the report stated. “The facility CEO stated that if the employees wanted to speak to USDA alone, the employee would have to come to management and inform them beforehand.”

The report goes onto to describe the Seaquarium as having “extremely limited veterinary staff” and that some animals have gone a year without routine medical care. Inspectors cited the case of Bimini, a 24-year-old bottlenose dolphin with multiple health issues. While a veterinarian at the Seaquarium wanted tests performed on the animal to get a better sense what’s wrong, those procedures didn’t happen for four months “due to the lack of veterinary staff, equipment and specialists.”

Part of the county’s justification for terminating the Seaquarium’s lease rests on maintenance issues, including code violations for the tank where manatees live and the stadium where dolphins perform.

In its suit, the Seaquarium claims Miami-Dade was holding the Dolphin Company to a stricter standard than the previous park owner, Fun Festival Parks, which was cited with code violations in 2021 but not subject to an eviction effort. It accuses the county of renting the Dolphin Company “a lemon.”

Miami Herald staff writer Linda Robertson contributed to this report.