Artist Taunts City Code Enforcers

Coconut Grove Artist Taunts City Code Enforcers

Having part of his brains blown out won't stop this war vet.

By Tim Elfrink

Published on October 22, 2008 at 9:10am

Eugene "Jobie" Steppe is an artist, but not the kind who wears a beret and paints watercolors by the river. He's the sort who makes a mural reading "Miami City Hall Nazi Party" and then parks it on Pan American Drive right under the mayor's nose for two months.

• Whitney Roux

  

  Eugene "Jobie" Steppe's art.

• Whitney Roux

  

  More of Eugene "Jobie" Steppe's art.

The small, wiry 65-year-old calls himself a "redneck from Fort Pierce" who was brain-damaged in Vietnam in 1963. "Part of my brains were blown out," he clarifies. "I don't remember it, but that's what they tell me." A knife in a leather sheath dangles from the belt of his khaki shorts.

So Riptide was unsurprised recently when Jobie — as he likes to be called — said he wouldn't back down from city code enforcers who last week began fining him $250 a day for running an illegal art gallery out of his home. "Last time they came by, I said, 'You better call the police before you come again, because I'll fucking beat your ass,'" he says.

Early this year, he began displaying his colorful mosaics made of cracked, glazed tiles in driftwood frames in front of his home and studio on shady Gifford Lane in Coconut Grove. Code enforcers cited him in June after neighbors complained. They noted some of the murals said "Art by Jobie" and that a website of the same name offered similar pieces for sale at prices up to $395.

After he failed to pay the fine or remove the murals, the case was sent to the city's code enforcement board. Things became so heated at a September 10 meeting that cops escorted Jobie from city hall. "The fines are going to continue," code enforcement director Mariano Loret de Mola said, "until he moves everything from the area in front of his home."

Jobie asserts the city is infringing on his First Amendment rights, and says a recent federal court decision allows him to sell art on the public easement in front of his house. But Riptide points out that a half-dozen tabletops with tile murals are on his front lawn.

"Those are just patio furniture," he says, smiling.

City Leeches

Free-weekly scum-suckers: Tim Elfrink's October 23 story "The Art of War" needs a retraction. Yes, I sustained brain damage in 1963 in the Army, but not in Vietnam, and I'm not Rambo at the age of 66. I'm going to kick the City of Miami's f**kin' ass in a court of law because my art is on an easement, and the cowards placed code violations on my home.

There is a difference between an easement and private property. The art galleries in the Grove thought I would put them out of business, so they complained to code enforcement; my neighbors enjoy the art. There aren't six patio tables in my front yard; there are three, and they've been there for years.

Elfrink got my personality and mood correct. They linger from a sordid past; I'm now civilized, practicing art for therapy to compensate for the injury suffered while serving in the Army. Then along comes a bunch of cowardly, prejudiced transplants who do not understand our constitutional freedoms and behave like a pack of dogs attacking easy prey. They are parasitic, blood-sucking leeches.

Eugene J. Steppe

Coconut Grove

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-10-23/news/coconut-grove-artist-taunts-city-code-enforcers

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-10-30/news/letters-from-the-issue-of-october-30-2008