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Jay Love has been running restaurants and bars in
Miami-Dade County with more than a little success since 1983. Now, he
says he's ready to run the county.
Jay Love
Love, 53, the wealthy owner of the Hooligan's Pub
restaurant chain, tossed his hat in the ring for the Miami-Dade
mayor's race five weeks ago. Voters will go to the polls on Sept. 5
and Love says he expects to be in the thick of the race, despite the
fact that he is having trouble gaining media recognition. He adds that
his primary reason for running is because of a void in county
leadership.
"The main reason is because of a lack of
leadership in the top position of Miami-Dade County," he said.
"We've lost businesses, our economic base is dwindling and I've
just decided enough is enough. It's time for a change because we don't
have any leadership right now."
Love criticized Mayor Alex Penelas for catering to one
segment of the community, charged that he has divided the county and
called on him to withdraw from the race.
"We need fair representation for everybody in
this county," said Love. "The mayor has basically catered
only to a segment of the community and the job of the mayor is to
represent everybody. I really don't believe that if Penelas won again
he could heal this community; the scars are too deep, he's said too
much, he's hurt the community too much. In fact, if he really cared
about the people of this community he would withdraw and let some new
leaders come in and heal our problems."
Love said he has spent the last five weeks traveling
the county, talking to people and trying to learn what the community
is thinking.
"I've been all over this county -- walking,
shaking hands -- and it's unbelievable the response from people,
they're definitely looking for a change," he said. "I'm
talking about walking into Publix or Home Depot and shaking hands with
people I don't know and saying, 'I'm Jay Love, please vote for me, I'm
running for mayor of Miami-Dade County.' Overwhelmingly, they say,
'Yes, we'll vote for you.'"
Love said he didn't consider his lack of political
experience a deterrent to his campaign, rather he saw it as a
positive.
"I possess the greatest single
qualification," he said, "and that is that I've never been
in politics. I'm not a career politician, so I going to bring some
business common sense to county government. It's time for people who
care to come out of the private sector and represent the people."
Asked if he viewed himself as the 'Anglo candidate' in
Latin-heavy Miami-Dade, Love said if elected he would be a mayor for
all of the people.
"Whether I'm Anglo or not, the bottom line is a
mayor needs to represent all of the people fairly and equally,"
he said. "That's the number one job that I'm going to tackle.
When someone is willing to do that, then there's the chance to get a
dialogue going where we can heal the community together as a
team."
Love said if elected one of his first moves would be
to cut the red tape county residents must deal with in order to do the
most basic things.
"We need to streamline county government and make
it user friendly to the public," he said. "I don't know if
you've ever been downtown to get a permit or anything, but it's a
nightmare. And, I've talked to many county government employees and
they say the same thing; they're even frustrated with the red tape,
the duplication processes and all the stuff that's going on."
Originally from Little Falls, New York, Love resides
in Palmetto Bay with his wife, Tina, and six children; Tiffany, 15,
Phillip, 14, Jessica, 13, Jay, Jr., 6, Samuel, 5, and Nicole, just two
weeks old.
An Air Force Vietnam veteran, Love moved to Miami-Dade
in 1978. He opened his first Hooligans Pub in 1983 and expanded the
operation over the years to as many as five outlets, before cutting
back to three.
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