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Your weekly slice of island life.

2020-06-25

Hello Key Biscayne!

Property values are down, covid’s on the up, and the seaweed is coming home. 🎉

Key Biscayne beach with seaweed June 2020Visit the hairy sands of Key Biscayne!

Short and bitter today, like a shot of robusta.

A quick one, two

Mask on, mask off You know how much you love to wear a mask inside stores? Well you’re in luck, because it seems the Village is close to announcing that you’ll have to wear a mask anytime you’re outside in public.

Cities all over the county are putting the rule in place in response to a rise in cases across the county and the state, and our own mayor has expressed support (and he never got caught violating the rules). Yesterday, Chief Press advised that the rule was likely incoming, so expect it to be announced soon. 😷

(KBPD)

You get it yet? Total reported positive cases are on the up from last week in Key Biscayne. That’s about all the information we can confidently report without more information, which is not easily accessible. Combined with the numbers from the county and the state, the general feeling around town is that we are seeing an increase.

(FDOH)

Beating the dead horse

The Oasis is dead. It’s been dead, more or less, since a fire destroyed its original location back in January 2017. But now it’s officially dead.

Oasis Cafe Key BiscayneIt looked like a rathole, but you had to be there.

They announced the close this week, and presumably laid off all the staff. Ángel and Lalo, the last of the original staff, worked there for at least 30 years. You’ll probably never see them again (unless you run into ‘em somewhere in Miami 😏).

The old Oasis was great because it was cheap, casual, and easy. It was a place to meet random people. The combination of these things is what we’ve lost.

Oasis Cafe post fire January 2017Totally an electrical fire.

You can get food and coffee for cheap at the Winn Dixie, but there’s no place to hang out. You can get a better cup of coffee at Starbucks but you can’t get a beer, and that mall has all the allure of a dentist’s office (incidentally, I think the same architect designed the new Oasis building). The place now residing in the spot of the old Oasis, Flour & Wierdoughs, has the great location, but the last thing you’ll ever see there is someone weird.

Even if you somehow got your hands on the old location, trying to get that kind of low margin, high volume business going without the 50 year reputation would be near impossible. The idea that you could get a $2 coffee and a $4 beer on a patio in a nice part of town already seems like a fever dream. 😴

Oasis Cafe plate Key BiscayneWhat's a good plate with nothing on it?

From the peanut gallery

In response to a response last week.

I’m not sure if journalistic integrity includes correcting/not publishing completely false statements from the peanut gallery, buuuut…

The statement from one of your readers that whites are killed by cops at a higher rate than blacks is false.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

I feel like a correction should be made in this case, as I’ve heard this false information amongst my peers, who are keen on reinforcing their world view.

Keep up the great work.

-GY

Ed. note: both responses were technically correct as last week’s response dealt in absolute terms while this week’s is talking about numbers relative to population size. Arguably, the latter is more telling. There was another claim that was not verified, which won’t happen again going forward.

Calendar

Around Town

Last Week's Sales

Location SQFT Rooms Prev Price
550 Ocean Dr 5F 1325 2/2 '16 $570k $540k
544 Warren Ln 1044 3/1 '12 $998k $1.085m

Really pushing that parade

Key Biscayne 4th of July parade route 2020Spot the condo that's no fun.

Done did it

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You guys think wearing masks in public places will correlate with numbers going down? 🤔

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