During a recent meeting, commissioners voted 3-2 to deny rezoning and 5-0 to deny a master plan, which would have relied on the rezoning proposal’s approval. Fifteen acres, including the Indian Trace Center and a vacant plot that would have hosted the hotel, would have been rezoned from a community business district to a planned development district, or PDD.

Development company H&M’s master plan for the PDD included a first phase for hotel construction and plaza improvements, and a second phase allowing further development for “residential, commercial, and office uses.”

Officials opposed to rezoning and the master plan variously cited residents’ traffic concerns, potential population density issues, and hotel visibility as key reasons for their votes.

“While the hotel and plaza improvements could bring economic benefit, the potential negative effects on daily life, safety and neighborhood character outweigh them,” Deputy Mayor Jacqueline Guzman said at the March 3 meeting. “Quality of life must come first.”

Assistant Deputy Mayor LaToya Clarke and Commissioner Neil Kerch, who expressed support for much of the hotel plan, joined Guzman’s vote to deny the rezoning proposal. Sunrise Mayor Michael Ryan and Commissioner Joey Scuotto voted against the denial.

Across the span of multiple City Commission meetings in the past two months, developers have presented their plans and evidence of its benefits, while dozens of Sunrise residents spoke about the potential negative impacts. Some business owners in the plaza have expressed approval of the hotel, citing the prospect of increased foot traffic.

Officials who voted not to deny rezoning said they would have preferred to host another City Commission meeting to hear arguments from developers and residents on the issue.

Most commissioners voting on either side cited concerns about Florida’s Live Local Act, an affordable housing law that has allowed developers to bypass certain approvals from cities if they include workforce housing in their plans, among other requirements.

Ryan said he was “terrified” of Live Local, warning community members that the city would have little power to negotiate for concessions with developers.

“I fear that we win a battle and lose the war,” Ryan said.

Prior to the vote, H&M had agreed to waive their right to invoke Live Local in their development plan as a condition of the PDD’s approval.

Two days following commissioners’ vote to deny rezoning, H&M principal Daniel Masveyraud declined to comment on whether the company will consider relying on Live Local moving forward.

“In any case, we look forward to being a responsible neighbor and will be sharing future plans for the property at a later date,” Masveyraud wrote. ]]> 13202014 2026-03-09T07:00:11+00:00 2026-03-06T17:20:56+00:00 https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/03/02/a-new-luxury-hotel-is-proposed-in-sunrise-near-i-75-drawing-both-support-and-opposition/ Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:00:09 +0000 https://www.sun-sentinel.com/?p=13190353 A new seven-story luxury hotel could rise next to a Sunrise shopping center just west of I-75, a plan that has drawn mixed reactions.

The hotel would be branded as a high-end Hyatt Place, with select service options, and Hyatt House, with upscale extended-stay services, according to H&M principal Daniel Masveyraud. It would include 174 rooms and span 102,271 square feet.

It would be built by Weston Hotel Management 18 LLC, an affiliate of H&M Development, on a parcel behind the Indian Trace Center, a shopping destination on the southwestern end of the city of Sunrise, footsteps from Weston. The center has been a longtime fixture for residents in both cities.

Supporters say the hotel could be an economic boon, offering new amenities and convenience. Alejandro Lopez, owner of Wings in Weston, a restaurant in the shopping center, sees it as an opportunity.

“As a locally owned, independent restaurant, we rely on steady foot traffic and a vibrant local economy,” Lopez wrote to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “A hotel brings visitors, business travelers, and families who will dine, shop, and spend their dollars at nearby mom-and-pop establishments.”

But there has been a swell of opposition, with neighbors raising concerns about potential traffic congestion, light and noise pollution, safety, and the prospect of even more development. An online petition against the hotel has garnered almost 3,900 signatures.

“No one wants to see a seven-story hotel from the backyard of their house, especially when they’ve seen a green parcel their whole entire life,” said 16-year-old Jett Grom, who started the petition with his friend Paul Gracey, also 16.

Plans take shape

A rezoning application under consideration would change the designation of 15 acres, including most of the plaza, from a community business district to a planned development district, or PDD.

The PDD designation would allow the construction of seven stories, the future development of mixed-use spaces in the zone, and for H&M to pursue improvements in the plaza.

A master plan calls for two phases that could affect several parcels. The first phase includes rezoning and the hotel plan, while the second phase would allow the development of parts of the zone for “residential, commercial, and office uses.”

Residents expressed concerns about increased population density, especially with the prospect of new residential builds.

“What we’re fighting against really is that rezoning, right?” said Sunrise resident Niccole Pazos, 41. “And the mixed-use spaces then will impact and implicate the residents in varying ways.”

During a quasi-judicial hearing before the City Commission on Feb. 3, H&M representatives presented several aspects of the plan and its projected impact.

These included improvements to the shopping center — including increased lighting, security measures, pedestrian crosswalks, landscaping and new signage.

Masveyraud said he, too, is a neighbor who frequents the shopping center and is well-versed with the area.

The partners at H&M “are members of the local community and plan to own this hotel for the very long term,” Masveyraud told the Sun Sentinel in an email. “I personally live five minutes away from the site, and have, for years, visited the shopping center at least three times for week for lunch and/or dinner.”

Jimmy Tate of Tate Capital, the shopping center’s original developer, leases spaces in the plaza to local businesses and contracted with H&M for the hotel build. He noted that since there are many hospital and medical buildings in the region, patients’ family members would have a place to stay when visiting their loved ones.

The hotel also would address the demand for upscale accommodations in the area; Masveyraud projected a stabilized occupancy rate of 82%.

Raising concerns

An independent study determined that the hotel, which visitors would be able to access through two existing driveways on 160th Avenue, would generate an additional 1,133 trips on the road per day. It would continue to operate at an acceptable level of service, according to the study.

Some residents argue more traffic isn’t needed in the neighborhood, especially on a sloped road. “I have to go a separate way,” said Gracey, who lives in a neighborhood beside the proposed hotel lot. “It’s just going to bring more traffic.”

H&M has committed to funding and building an additional right turning lane at an intersection, Indian Trace and Southwest 160th Avenue, that sits beside the lot.

Pazos, Grom and Gracey questioned whether the hotel would raise security issues as a result of newcomers driving into the community, noting the presence of a preschool near the plaza. Tate and Masveyraud said the Hyatt-branded hotel, with its higher-end status, would draw affluent clientele.

“Our proposed hotel is an upscale Hyatt, not a motel,” Masveyraud wrote. “In fact, security experts have opined that it is safer to have a luxury hotel at the back of the shopping center than a vacant, unlit, undeveloped piece of land.”

Tate added he expected many patrons would be the family members of patients at nearby hospitals.

Tate also said the shopping center’s current businesses are poised to stay, despite community concerns over the potential loss of local fixtures: Some lease agreements extend into the 2030s and 2040s.

If approved, hotel construction could begin as early as this summer.

Anna Giza, 52, is facing a murder charge and five other felonies after the deadly crash on Florida’s Turnpike near Sunrise Boulevard, court records show.

The death is the second of an uninvolved driver in the past 10 days that occurred during a pursuit in Broward County. On Feb. 16, an uninvolved driver was killed in Tamarac in a crash that occurred as Broward Sheriff’s deputies pursued an aggravated battery suspect driving a stolen car.

Bonnie Bouffard was identified in social media posts shared by a friend and relative on Friday as the person who was killed in the crash.

The crash happened about the time Bouffard, 74, would typically be heading home from her job at an orthopedic surgeon’s office in the nearby area, friend of 13 years Cindy Scurry told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday night.

“I was watching it on the news yesterday, and I didn’t even know it was her that I was watching,” she said.

The chain of events began when a white Ford pickup truck was stolen in Fort Lauderdale shortly before 4 p.m. About 10 minutes later, the truck’s tracking device showed the driver, later identified as Giza, had reached the area of northbound Interstate 95 and Southwest 10th Street in Deerfield Beach, a probable cause affidavit said.

One Broward Sheriff’s deputy was receiving updates on the truck’s location from the person who reported it stolen, the affidavit said, and the deputy communicated over radio the truck’s location every few minutes.

Just before 4:30 p.m., the truck drove into Coconut Creek in the area of Sample Road and Banks Road. Multiple Coconut Creek officers pulled the truck driver over one minute later at Sample Road and the southbound entrance to the turnpike.

A K-9 BSO deputy arrived at the scene of the traffic stop and saw that the driver was not following orders to get out of the truck, the affidavit said. The truck driver then reversed and intentionally hit the K-9 deputy’s car, as well as a Coconut Creek sergeant’s marked car. Both the deputy and sergeant were in their cars when the truck hit them.

BSO deputies then began pursuing the driver, who had committed multiple forcible felonies by that point, according to the affidavit.

Broward Sheriff’s Office policy allows deputies to pursue when a forcibly felony has been committed.

It is unclear from the affidavit whether Coconut Creek Police officers also participated in the pursuit.

While fleeing on the turnpike shortly after 4:30 p.m., Giza weaved in and out of lanes at high speeds and drove on the shoulder of the highway to evade deputies, the affidavit says. BSO helicopters were tracking the truck’s movement from the air as the driver fled.

The first collision happened when the truck struck a car about half a mile before the Sunrise Boulevard exit. It is unclear from the affidavit whether anyone was injured.

One BSO deputy driving in the chase tried to perform a Precision Immobilization Technique, known as a PIT maneuver, near the Sunrise Boulevard exit, according to the affidavit. The technique involves a law enforcement officer using his or her car to force a pursued car to abruptly spin out, which causes the driver to lose control and stop fleeing.

“Due to oncoming traffic safety concerns,” the deputy decided “to disengage” from the PIT maneuver, the affidavit said. However, 30 seconds later, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper then performed a second PIT maneuver to stop the truck.

The truck hit the right shoulder wall of the turnpike and collided with a black Nissan Altima that was on the road’s shoulder, the affidavit said. The driver of the Nissan was pronounced dead at the scene.

Giza and the BSO deputy and Coconut Creek sergeant whose cars Giza crashed into at the beginning of the incident were all taken to a hospital and were expected to recover.

Giza was held in the North Broward Bureau as of Friday night.

All southbound lanes from Sunrise Boulevard to Interstate 595 were closed for hours on Thursday, lasting until about midnight, creating traffic gridlock.

‘A very kind heart’

Bouffard, a longtime Broward County resident originally from New Jersey, celebrated her 74th birthday in December at the Cooper City American Legion Post 321, where she was a member, Scurry said.

She and Bouffard often spent time together kayaking and rafting on the river in Dunnellon, and the two had a trip planned there within the coming weeks, Scurry said. She loved to play bingo and shoot pool, and if there was a get-together with her friends, everyone wanted her to bring her deviled eggs.

“She had a very kind heart,” Scurry said. “She was a little rough around the edges, but her heart was gold.”

Controversial PIT maneuvers

PIT maneuvers were performed in both Thursday’s pursuit and the pursuit in Tamarac with BSO deputies on Feb. 16, according to court records.

In Tamarac, a deputy tried unsuccessfully to stop a fleeing driver with a PIT maneuver and briefly lost control of his car after trying to perform the technique, according to a probable cause affidavit. The deputy regained control as he entered an intersection and crashed into an uninvolved car. Ronald Wilson, the driver of the uninvolved car, died.

PIT maneuvers are controversial and a high-risk tactic, according to a recent report on guidance for vehicle pursuits from the Police Executive Research Forum. High-ranking law enforcement officials from different states who worked on the recent report could not reach a consensus about whether the PIT maneuver should be a  permitted technique.

“Until there is research-backed evidence defining the parameters within which PIT maneuvers can be employed safely and effectively, this guide cannot without serious reservation endorse their use,” the research report said.

BSO’s policy allows for the technique to be performed in any authorized pursuit and is described as “a safe and effective way to end pursuits” when done correctly.

FHP’s current policy says the maneuver is the “primary technique” used to end pursuits and that a trooper’s actions “must be objectively reasonable.” Among factors to be considered before a PIT maneuver is used are speed of the vehicle, traffic volume and pedestrian traffic.

Current research has not been able to determine at what speed PIT maneuvers can be considered reliably safe, according to the experts who authored the PERF report.

At least one South Florida police agency’s policy prohibits the PIT maneuver at speeds of more than 45 mph, unless deadly force would be justified.

A few other South Florida agencies’ policies are more restrictive. One agency’s policy says “ramming” a car during a pursuit is prohibited unless deadly force is necessary while another agency says pursued cars should not, at any time, be forced to stop by ramming.

Staff writer Shira Moolten contributed to this report.

As local fans know, especially if they forked out money for both concerts, their blue-collar heroes each had scheduled shows in South Florida within about two weeks of each other: Springsteen at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on April 23 and Morello at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale on May 9.

But in order to perform on Springsteen’s tour, Morello had to clear space on his schedule, and that meant postponing his show at The Rev. Morello has also rescheduled his May 10 concert in Tampa, along with shows in Atlanta, Nashville and Milwaukee.

In an Instagram post, Morello said fans will receive an email about new dates for the postponed concerts, with instructions on refunds if they can’t attend.

Meanwhile, Springsteen and The E Street Band will open their 20-date Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour on March 31 in Minneapolis, where The Boss recently took the stage at Morello’s Concert of Solidarity & Resistance to Defend Minnesota!

Morello will perform a solo set on each date and sit in with Springsteen for several songs each night.

“After Bruce joined me last month in Minneapolis for our ‘Defend Minnesota’ charity concert, I was reminded how important our platform is, and how crucial the resistance work is that our music can do together at this dangerous historical juncture,” Morello wrote on Instagram with a picture showing the two backstage.

“Together, Bruce, the E Street Band, and I are going to turn a spotlight on the current threats to democracy and human rights happening all around us … in the spirit of freedom, justice, and rock n roll. This will necessitate postponing a few of my solo shows in May,” Morello wrote.

Of the postponed shows, Morello said: “I have a deep love and respect for all my friends, fans & comrades and I promise that we will find a way to be together for these shows, in these towns, very soon.”

For updates, visit tommorello.com.

For more information about the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour, visit BruceSpringsteen.net.

Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com. Follow on IG: @BenCrandell.

Tickets are scheduled to go on sale at noon Friday at Seatgeek.com.

The 20-date trek will begin March 31 in Minneapolis, the setting of Springsteen’s anti-ICE protest song “Streets of Minneapolis,” released on Jan. 28.

The tour is a continuation of Springsteen’s 2025 European tour that produced the “Land of Hope and Dreams” EP, recorded live in Manchester, England.

It marks the band’s first North American tour since 2024 — he hasn’t played South Florida since a 2023 concert at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, a memorably riveting show nearly three hours long.

Springsteen announced the new tour with trademark candor: “We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair — the cavalry is coming!” he says on his website. “We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America — American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream — all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, D.C. Everyone, regardless of where you stand or what you believe in, is welcome.”

For more information about the tour, visit BruceSpringsteen.net.

Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com. Follow on IG: @BenCrandell.

Rakesh Jhaveri, of Sunrise, was arrested in November after a 15-year-old girl and her parents reported to police that she had been sexually abused by him since 2023, according to a probable cause affidavit. He was a friend of the girl’s family and had known her since she was 8 years old.

When the girl was 13 years old, she started taking music lessons with Jhaveri at the studio Music Legacies in Pembroke Pines. Most of the instances of abuse happened at the studio while the girl was supposed to be taking music lessons, according to the affidavit.

Jhaveri and the music business are named as defendants in a civil lawsuit filed last week by a Jane Doe and Father Doe that details similar allegations, according to the lawsuit complaint. An attorney representing the anonymous girl did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

Initially arrested on multiple counts of lewd and lascivious battery of a victim between 12 and 16 years old, he was charged in January with two more counts, both charges of possession of child pornography, court records show.

Pembroke Pines Sgt. Jason Palant said in an email Wednesday that detectives found files on Jhaveri’s cellphone during their initial investigation that met the criteria for child pornography, but Palant did not provide further details.

“In coordination with the State Attorney’s Office, an arrest warrant was subsequently obtained for these charges,” Palant said. “Mr. Jhaveri was taken into custody by the Broward Sheriff’s Office during a related court appearance.”

Additional details of the investigation leading to the added charges are not available in court records.

Saks Global operates 70 Saks Off 5th locations and plans to shutter all but 12 stores, the company said Thursday. The remaining outlets will serve primarily as a selling channel for residual inventory from Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, it said.

The Saks Off 5th locations that will remain open include five in South Florida: Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise, Somerset Shoppes in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Outlets in West Palm Beach, Town Center Aventura and Dolphin Mall in Miami.

The company will close the remaining five Last Call stores, which are outlet locations that serve as a discount channel for Neiman Marcus. One of those is at the Sawgrass Mills mall in Sunrise.

Saks Global also said it will wind down Saksoff5th.com, a separate legal entity from Saks Global. Consequently, Saks Global said it will move away from purchasing merchandise directly for Saks Off 5th.

“As we advance on Saks Global’s transformation, we are taking decisive steps to realign our business to better serve our luxury customers and drive full-price selling across our core luxury businesses,” Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Saks Global, said in a statement.

Saks Global on Saturday will begin going-out-of-business sales at certain Saks Off 5th locations, subject to bankruptcy approval, and all Last Call locations. It’s already started going-out-of-business sales on Saksoff5th.com on Friday. The site showed up to 85% off on merchandise.

Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on Jan. 14, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago.

Saks Global, which also operates Bergdorf Goodman, secured roughly $500 million of the broader $1.75 billion financial package. That money will help to pay its suppliers, who have faced a pile of unpaid bills from the retailer and who are critical for keeping the store stocked with merchandise.

It played out precisely according to script last weekend as word spread of the military incursion in which the U.S. captured and removed Venezuela’s dictatorial president, Nicolás Maduro.

A half hour north of Doral, in parts of Broward County — where Weston has one of the largest concentrations of Venezuelans in the United States — Maduro’s ouster produced just as much joy, and in the days after just as much concern, even though it didn’t attract the same volume of news cameras.

“The whole community, the whole Venezuelan community I would say is happy. The people are just happy,” said Alexander Rueda, a native of Venezuela who is now a U.S. citizen and Weston resident. I don’t know even one person who is not against Maduro.”

Rueda, 55, and his family are among the immigrants from Venezuela who have transformed the economy, culture and politics of Weston — and, more recently, pockets of other nearby communities in Southwest Broward.

Weston is home to so many Venezuelans who are now U.S. citizens, people who have been legally allowed to live and work in the country, and their American-born citizen children that the city is often called Westonzuela.

Rueda estimated that two of every three people in his neighborhood are from Venezuela. His two youngest children attend Cypress Bay High School, where an estimated 65% of the students are Hispanic. (School district data doesn’t break down background by nationality.) Rueda’s two older children are graduates of Florida International University.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has lived in Weston for 28 years, said in an interview most of the neighbors on her block are Venezuelan, and many of her now-adult children’s friends when they were in school there were Venezuelan.

And, she said, Venezuelans and non-Venezuelans aren’t isolated in separate enclaves the way different ethnic groups are in some places.

The numbers

A Neilsberg Research analysis in October of the Census Bureau’s most recent American Community Survey data found Broward has 58,811 Venezuelan residents.

Previous research estimated the county’s Venezuelan population was 25,073 in 2012, up significantly from 8,807 in 2000.

And the biggest concentration is in Weston, where the estimated 10,215 Venezuelans make up 15% of the city’s population. Venezuelans are 3% of the countywide population.

Pembroke Pines, Sunrise, Miramar, Hollywood, Coral Springs and Davie also have sizable, though smaller Venezuelan populations. Pembroke Pines has the largest number outside Weston, at 8,391, an estimated 5% of the city’s population. In Sunrise the estimated 5,734 are 6% of the city’s population.

Palm Beach County, by contrast, has an estimated countywide Venezuelan population of 14,385 — less than 1% of the county’s residents. Orange County’s 40,906 residents are 2.8% of the county’s total population.

Miami-Dade County’s 124,087 Venezuelans are 4.6% of its residents. Doral, home to an estimated 31,361 Venezuelans, or 41%, has the largest Venezuelan population in the country.

Impact

Food is a visible way the Venezuelan diaspora has had an impact, said Eduardo Gamarra, a political science professor at Florida International University, and founder of the Latino Public Opinion Forum at FIU’s School of International and Public Affairs.

“I see the influence in the restaurants that have opened up there, especially in the Weston area and in parts of western Broward,” he said. “More than anything else they have improved our culinary experience.”

Thriving businesses are a result, Gamarra said.

Adelys Ferro, a Weston resident and executive director of the political advocacy organization Venezuelan American Caucus, said there are food truck owners, entrepreneurs, nurses, restaurateurs, teachers and delivery people, along with many other business and professional people.

“We have become a very important asset of Weston and of Broward,” Ferro said. “I think it’s a critical community, a really very important community. We are part of not only the cultural fabric of the community, but also the economic fabric of the community.”

And there are large businesses that started small in Weston. Rueda is CEO of Panna Group, a food company which in many ways illustrates the growth and economic importance of the Venezuelan community in Weston.

Panna started selling Venezuelan food — tequeños (fried dough-wrapped cheese sticks), empanadas (dough with a filling), and cachitos (ham-filled rolls) — at a gas station in Weston in 2000. It still does.

The company, which Rueda joined in 2014, now has five restaurants and coffee shops in Weston, Doral and Orlando.

Panna today has more than 200 employees, and the company produces and distributes its products to retailers, including Walmart, in 40 states. It had $45 million in revenue in its most recent year of business, Rueda said.

The now larger company’s products serve a wider range of tastes, including Argentinian empanadas, which use wheat as the main ingredient and are baked; Colombian empanadas, which have a yellow-corn base and are fried; and Venezuelan empanadas, which have a white corn base and also are fried, he said.

Why Weston

There are varied, complex and often interrelated reasons why so many Venezuelans have made Westonzuela their home.

Venezuelans have been coming to the U.S. for decades in waves, sometimes motivated more by economics, sometimes motivated by political turmoil and repression.

Weston has long been a prime destination. Wasserman Schultz said it is home to people who have lived in the community for decades along with newer arrivals.

Decades ago, some wealthier Venezuelans began splitting their time between South Florida and their home country, gradually spending more and more time. Some people with the financial ability moved their families to the area and, for a time, returned to Venezuela to conduct business.

Later, Venezuelans fled economic chaos and lawlessness under the repressive regimes of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Upheavals, repression and economic turmoil under those leaders sometimes produced large influxes of new arrivals.

(President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted, without offering evidence, that Maduro emptied prisons and mental institutions and sent millions of violent criminals to the United States.)

Attracted by the city’s reputation for having stellar schools and one of the lowest crime rates in Florida, many immigrants from Venezuela settled in Weston. Crime statistics show the city continues to have one of the lowest crime rates in the state and nation.

Rueda, who moved to the U.S. in 2006 as his career advanced with a Fortune 500 company, recalls that real estate companies had sales offices in Venezuela.

Fabio Andrade, who is Colombian, said that years ago developers building in the planned city of Weston advertised to potential buyers in Venezuela and Colombia. Old news coverage about Arvida, the company that planned and developed Weston, reported that developers advertised in those countries in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“That is how both the Colombian and the Venezuelan communities started coming to Broward,” Andrade said.

Elected to the Weston City Commission in 2024, Andrade founded the Americas Community Center decades ago, and the organization still runs programs helping Hispanic immigrants with assistance in jobs and networking in Broward County.

Given his corporate career that brought him to the U.S., Rueda said he’s different from many Venezuelan immigrants. He’s similar, though, in that schools attracted him to Weston, in 2016. “Weston became a very attractive place because of the education,” he said. “The Venezuelan people value education.”

Ramón Peraza, 70, said he arrived in Weston 22 years ago with his wife and four children, then between 9 and 18 years old. The family has grown; he now has four grandchildren.

A few years after arriving, they bought Café Canela on the Weston-Sunrise border, where he said most of his customers were, and remain, Venezuelan.

He was an electrical engineer, who came to the U.S. for better opportunities, having previously vacationed here. Peraza said he left Venezuela, because it was impossible to work there. And he’s now a citizen of the U.S., which he called “a great nation, the best nation in the world.”

Gamarra said earlier phases of Venezuelan migration featured people with more money and more education, who were better able to afford to buy in Weston. Many of the more recent arrivals didn’t have financial resources to buy homes in an upscale community and are more dispersed.

U.S. politics

There aren’t any Venezuelan Americans in elected office in Broward, Ferro said. But the community enjoys some political clout even though it is not a large voting block.

Amassing influence and getting people elected takes time. Some immigrants were concentrating on making a living. It also takes time to gain citizenship, which allows people to vote.

And some immigrants had a bad feeling about politics in general, after fleeing a country where disagreeing with the regime could lead to harsh treatment. “Many of the people fled from Venezuela because they don’t want to continue living a life where politics has to be the main thing in your life,” Rueda said.

Still, political leaders in both parties are responsive to the Venezuelan community.

Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat, has long been an outspoken critic of the Chavez and Maduro governments — and has often advocated more hawkish U.S. policy toward the country’s dictatorial leaders than other Democrats. In 2019, she visited the Colombian-Venezuelan border and met with refugees.

Gamarra said the congresswoman is reflecting her constituency “probably better than any other Democrat that I know of. … She certainly wasn’t doing the progressive agenda with them. The rest of the Democratic candidates were never able to do what she did.”

Andrade, who was the founding president of Republican Amigos, a Broward political club, also said the Democratic congresswoman has been responsive to the Venezuelan and Colombian communities.

For many years, Gamarra said, Venezuelans who had become citizens tended to lean Democratic, something he said changed with the rise of Trump in 2016.

As to how Venezuelan Americans vote in 2026 and beyond, that’s unclear. “How the Venezuelan vote plays out is going to greatly depend on how the next few months goes,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Anxious, optimistic

Many in the Venezuelan community praised Trump’s actions that removed Maduro. “We are very, very happy what the United States is doing about liberty for Venezuela,” Peraza said.

Others are concerned about what comes next in the country and whether the administration’s efforts to end temporary protected status, known as TPS, will result in mass deportations of Venezuelans.

The Trump administration is terminating TPS, a humanitarian program, which allows people who’ve fled turmoil in their home countries and can’t return home to legally live and work in the U.S. The administration is working to end TPS for people from multiple troubled countries.

If large numbers of Venezuelans are forced to leave, Gamarra said the effects would be significant. “It’ll be big. I don’t think we fully understand that yet.”

Republican Andrade and Democrat Ferro said the end of TPS is a major concern.

On Friday, Wasserman Schultz and U.S. Rep. Darren Soto of Orlando, led 70 Democrats in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding they immediately restore TPS for Venezuelans.

Questions remain about the nature of the government the Trump administration is allowing to run the country, with many Maduro allies in positions of power, including his vice president. And people in the country may be unable to obtain basic goods and services, something that was already difficult under the crumbling Maduro-led economy.

Wasserman Schultz called the capture and removal of Maduro “welcome news.”

“The real concern that exists right now among Venezuelans in our community in Broward is that they’ve cut off the head of a snake and swapped it for another head on top of the same snake’s body,” Wasserman Schultz said. “So while there’s excitement and hope, probably still cautious optimism, there’s real concern.”

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

The human circus — eschewing animal acts for dazzling derring-do from acrobats and athletes — is making its South Florida debut Jan. 9-19 in a big-top tent to be set up in Miramar Regional Park. And unlike other circuses that crisscross Broward and Palm Beach counties, Paranormal Cirque is not for the whole family.

“We’re bringing our R-rated horror circus with a haunted attraction pre-show,” says Steve Copeland, a comedian and spokesman with Cirque Italia, the show’s Bradenton-based producer. “It’s rated R cuz there’s lots of bad language, there’s adult humor, there’s skimpy and revealing costuming. No nudity, unless you maybe buy the performers a couple drinks, but no nudity in the show itself. Miramar better get ready for a heck of a good time.”

According to Copeland, some of the acts include:

• A juggling Beetlejuice.
• A motorcycle on a thin wire “… high above your head with a lovely lady performing on a trapeze hanging underneath.”
• “A woman who can shoot a bow and arrow with her feet.”
• “A woman hanging by her hair.”
• “A duo performing amazing acrobatics on roller skates.”
• There will also be comedy, magic illusions and more.

“We’re a strictly non-animal circus, although some of our performers do eat like animals,” he adds. “You’re going to see awesome acrobatics, beautiful aerial acts, you’re going to see feats of strength and daring and death-defying death stunts — all with a horror theme. So all of the acts are performed by zombies, by ghosts, by werewolves, by vampires. There’s also a lot of comedy, which people don’t expect. In fact, a lot of the R rating comes from the comedy.”

Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to see Paranormal Cirque, but teenagers (ages 13 through 17) can attend as long as they have an adult guardian.

Copeland continues, “And in addition to two hours of Vegas quality R-rated power circus entertainment, you get a haunted attraction free show that begins an hour before show time and it’s free with the admission ticket. So, you don’t have to pay anything extra, it’s included in the price of the ticket. And it’s a walk-through haunted house starring the same performers that you’re going to see in the show. They’re going to scare the heck out of you. So, maybe bring a change of underwear.”

The show’s parent company, Cirque Italia, was started by Manuel Rebecchi in 2012 and now has seven touring companies. Rebecchi is the nephew of the late Moira Orfei, a famous Italian circus performer and actor.

Paranormal Cirque runs Jan. 9-19 at Miramar Regional,16801 Miramar Parkway. Tickets range from $20-$65. To purchase, go to paranormalcirque.com.

AND HERE ARE MORE CIRCUSES COMING SOON TO BROWARD AND PALM BEACH COUNTIES

• Water Circus Atlantis (also a Cirque Italia production): Jan. 2-12 at Broward Mall, 8000 W. Broward Blvd., Plantation. Tickets are $15-$65. cirqueitalia.com/Water-Circus.
• Riverfront Circus at The Wharf Fort Lauderdale, Jan. 15-18 at The Wharf FTL, 20 W Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale. Admission is free (if you RSVP). Tables range from $269.12-$536.54. wharfftl.com.
• Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey, Jan. 23-25 at Amerant Bank Arena, 1 Panther Parkway, Sunrise. Tickets are $38-$83. amerantbankarena.com.
• Luzia by Cirque du Soleil, Feb. 19-April 25 at Gulfstream Park, 901 S. Federal Highway, Hallandale Beach. Tickets are $38-$310. cirquedusoleil.com/LUZIA.
• Shen Yun Performing Arts
  — Feb. 2-3 at Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Tickets are $103.50-$230. kravis.org.
  — Feb. 17-18 at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $106.20-$236. browardcenter.org.
• The Great Mr. Swindle’s Traveling Peculiarium and Drink-Ory Garden (adults only)
  — Feb. 12-22 under the big top tent at Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton. Tickets are $55-$95. mrswindles.com.
  — Feb. 26-March 22 under the big top tent near Seabreeze Amphitheater at Carlin Park, Carlin Park, 750 South A1A Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway, Jupiter. Tickets are $55-$90

“What needs to happen is that Donald Trump needs to put the sanctions back on Venezuela and starve the regime, not enrich Maduro” by continuing to allow Venezuelan oil to flow to foreign buyers, she told reporters while appearing alongside two leaders of the Venezuela-American Caucus at her district office in Sunrise on Thursday.

The Democratic congresswoman also asserted that the Pentagon’s military assaults in international waters against alleged drug traffickers from Venezuela — a campaign that has resulted in an estimated 61 deaths in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific thus far — have occurred “with no evidence, due process or congressional authorization.”

“Extrajudicial murder of Venezuelans is what Maduro does, it is not what America should do,” she said.

Disbelief and disappointment

Wasserman Schultz made her remarks after meeting privately with six Venezuelan community leaders. Only two appeared to meet with reporters to discuss the potential for mass deportations of 600,000 Venezuelans after the Trump administration removed their temporary protected status this summer.

Adelys Ferro, the executive director of the Venezuela-American Caucus and a member of the Latino Victory Project, and Luis Fernando Atencio, co-founder of the caucus, told reporters that they preferred a peaceful transition of power from Maduro, who most observers say stole a presidential election last year and jailed political opponents. The two leaders said the Venezuelan community is in a state of “disbelief” and “disappointment” after Trump invalidated the protections that allowed them to stay in South Florida and elsewhere around the nation.

“What he is doing, in many ways, sadly, is very similar to what we know, what we have experienced back in Venezuela. And that similarity doesn’t have to do with any political way of thinking,” Ferro said.

Wasserman Schultz added, “Many of the Venezuelans in my district and across South Florida fled the brutality and despotism of the Maduro regime [and] many have family members who are still there.”

“Deal with a devil”

“[Trump] cut a deal with the devil Maduro to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans  to a country where they know they will face oppression, danger, persecution and arrest — and I am talking about people who have never committed crimes,” she said. The deal, she asserted, allowed Maduro to continue to sell oil “and continue to remain in power.”

Earlier this year, the administration renewed a license for the multinational energy conglomerate Chevron to resume oil drilling in the South American nation.

“Donald Trump can pretend off to the side with his distractions that he has the best interests of Venezuelans in restoring democracy at heart,” she added. “But the stories I hear from across our community including today at our roundtable underscore that the opposite is true.

“Trump’s presidency has been an unending nightmare for Venezuelan-Americans here and around the country,” she added. “He has ripped away temporary protected status from law-abiding families and thrown countless families into terror through raids conducted by agents in masks.”

The meeting came one day before a flurry of reports emerged — and were subsequently denied by the administration — that U.S. ships and troops amassed in the southern Caribbean are close to launching a series of attacks on various locations inside Venezuela.

A salad of actions

Since starting his second term in the White House, Trump has undertaken a salad bowl approach for dealing with the Venezuelan regime.

The reported actions include:

• A prisoner swap with the regime that saw the release of 10 American citizens in exchange for 250 deported Venezuelan nationals held in a prison in El Salvador.
• Renewal of a U.S. Treasury license — previously revoked by Trump — for the oil multinational Chevron to resume doing business in Venezuela.
• Removal of temporary protected status for 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. and the start of deportations.
• Establishment of a $50 million reward for the arrest of Maduro as a “narco-terrorist.”
• Rejection of offers from a worried Maduro regime to cede natural resource rights in Venezuela to the U.S.
• Authorization of the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.
• Dispatch of U.S. ships and warplanes including the massive aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to the Caribbean.

Toward a ‘peaceful’ political transition

Wasserman Schultz cast doubt over whether an attempt at a forceful U.S.-led regime change would end well.

“Our track record in the United States is abhorrent when it comes to regime change, particularly in Latin America, and he is alienating Latin American leaders who are opposed to Maduro, but who are starting to sympathize more with him because of Trump’s illegal actions,” she said.

“We have to make sure that we build consensus and that we starve Maduro out of power through really significant sanctions and pressure through regional unity,” she added.

Luis Atencio asserted that “Venezuela is in dire need of a political transition.”

“This political transition has to be democratic, peaceful, but also centered on justice,” he added. “This pathway was opened up last year when Venezuelans elected Edmundo Gonzalez as our president-elect. Above all else, this has to be respected and maintained.”

Gonzalez has been living in exile in Spain after a 2024 election in which most domestic and international observers agreed he had soundly defeated Maduro, who rejected the results and retained power.

“It would be opportune to thank the United States and representatives such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz for always having our back and standing with us whenever we needed it the most,” Atencio said.

But in the interest of reconciliation among all Venezuelans, he said, it is “extremely important” that the effort remain centered on the rule of law and human rights.

“If these principles aren’t followed we know that true liberty in Venezuela cannot be attained,” Atencio said.