Norm Powell Passionately Defends Property Rights!

I have a weakness for staunch defenders of constitutional rights. After eight years, I guess that makes me old-fashioned.

That's why Norm Powell is my hero today.

From the more-cases-I-wish-I-had file:

The club now sits at the city's gateway, in a high-profile spot along the 163rd Street Causeway, but city commissioners want the club to relocate to one of two strip malls on the west side of Collins Avenue. Those two malls will become the city's new official adult entertainment zone, if commissioners give the measure final approval Thursday.

Thee Dollhouse will still have a home in Sunny Isles Beach, the city says -- just not at its front door.

''The business is not being banned from our city,'' Commissioner Roslyn Brezin said at a recent commission meeting. ``What we are asking you to do is change the locale for what is best for our city.''

If approved, the club would have five years to relocate.

But the owners of what is the city's lone adult establishment are crying foul, arguing the move is meant to put them out of business. The strip malls' owner refuses to lease to Thee Dollhouse, the club's attorney says. And the city, in concert with a local developer, has hatched redevelopment plans that include Thee Dollhouse property, he said.

''This is not about adult entertainment,'' said Norman Powell, an attorney representing the club. ``It's a land grab.''

TOWN CENTER

Powell points to a brochure for the St. Tropez condo and town house development across the street, which features artistic renderings for a town center and park on a site including Thee Dollhouse property. It includes a quote from Mayor Norman Edelcup, touting the project and its street-side promenade as major enhancements to Sunny Isles Beach.

The city has made no secret of eyeing the land for park space, said City Attorney Hans Ottinot. He and other city officials have met several times with the Weiner family, who own the land where Thee Dollhouse sits, to discuss buying the property at 255 Sunny Isles Blvd., Ottinot says.

But Ottinot said a land deal is separate from rezoning the adult business.

''This is not a grand scheme, a conspiring between the city and the developer of the St. Tropez,'' Ottinot said. ``When you don't have a substantive legal argument, you raise a lot of red herrings.''

Powell, along with a team of First Amendment attorneys, has raised other legal issues, including that the club should not be subject to any new zoning regulations because it predates the city's 1997 incorporation.

Sure, Floyd Abrams had the Pentagon Papers, but you know -- a right is a right.