Mango's owner accuses neighboring hotel owner of stealing towels

David Wallack says Mitch Novick 'should be arrested'

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The battle over the future of Ocean Drive, the South Beach nightlife Mecca, is pitting at least two businesses against each other.

"I saw my neighbor coming into my property and stealing towels," Mango's Tropical Cafe owner David Wallack said.

Wallack has a surveillance video from July 12 that he said shows neighboring hotel owner Mitch Novick, shirtless, walking into his storeroom and walking out, after having stolen a handful of dirty towels.

"I think he should be arrested for committing a felony," Wallack said.

If Novick’s name sounds familiar, that's because he's the outspoken hotel owner who has posted his own videos of shenanigans and crimes that took place right outside his window.

Novick has said establishments such as Mango's are the problem on Ocean Drive. He said they are loud and they breed crime and violence. 

Police aren't naming Novick as a person of interest in this incident, but said they have opened an investigation and are looking at the video.

Novick told Local 10 News that he had no comment on the footage and that he has "borrowed" towels from the restaurant in the past. Novick provided his own video that he said shows him returning the dirty towels to the Mango's outside dumpster.

He also said he has his own unflattering video of Wallack and shared a video of what he calls "catastrophic environmental damage" done by paint runoff from Mango's into a nearby storm drain.


About the Author:

Janine Stanwood joined Local 10 News in February 2004 as an assignment editor. She is now a general assignment reporter. Before moving to South Florida from her Washington home, Janine was the senior legislative correspondent for a United States senator on Capitol Hill.