By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A club owner yesterday said he aims to file a lawsuit against the Bimini Bay Resort’s original developers “any day now” over the alleged demolition of his property, adding: “I’m not going to stop until I have justice.”

Garrick Edwards, the entertainment owner/promoter behind the Sakara Beach Club, said he was not going to let RAV Bahamas and its principals walk away from the July 18 bulldozing of his property “as if it’s no big deal”.

Disclosing to Tribune Business that the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) had informed him they were not going to investigate the incident on the grounds it was ‘a civil matter’, Mr Edwards said this was the course he was now pursuing.

“That is on the table right now,” Mr Edwards replied, when asked by Tribune Business whether he planned to initiate legal action over the alleged Sakara Beach Club demolition.

“My attorneys are seeing to it, and hopefully something will be filed any day now.” His attorney is Mario Gray.

“I’m like a pitbull,” Mr Edwards added. “You knock me down, and I keep coming back stringer and stronger.

“They’re not going to get away with this. If I have to go to the Privy Council in London, I will do so.

“I’m in for the long haul. We’re not going to stop until justice is brought. I would be doing my staff an injustice if I did not go out there and bring to light the things I do know.”

Tribune Business reported last week how Mr Edwards’ club was demolished, allegedly without authorisation, by RAV Bahamas, which is owned by developer Gerardo Capo, in the early morning hours of July 18, 2013, putting his 15-strong Biminite staff out of work.

Rafael Reyes, RAV Bahamas’ vice-president and Mr Capo’s son-in-law, who Mr Edwards accused of giving the orders to demolish the Sakara Beach Club, told this newspaper he would be “interested” to hear what Mr Edwards had to say.

However, he has never responded further, and RAV Bahamas has said nothing since the article was published.

Mr Edwards, though, told Tribune Business that all his former staff had been unable to find jobs since the demolition.

“Jobs in Bimini are very hard to come by; life is not easy at all,” he told Tribune Business. “We’d trained them, our staff were ready to go, and we had a real good family.

“People have been sending me e-mails about my staff, and now they’ve lost their jobs they can’t be hired back [by Bimini Bay] because they worked for me.

“They take away their livelihoods, and not even given them an opportunity to work in the industry.”

Mr Edwards described the police’s refusal to investigate the alleged Sakara Beach Club demolition, and position that it was a ‘civil matter’, as “crazy”.

“They [RAV Bahamas] destroyed Bahamian jobs with no justification or authorisation at all, at the snap of a finger, and are able to walk away as if it’s no big deal,” he told Tribune Business.

“Bimini does not belong to the Biminites any more. That’s basically what it is. It no longer belongs to the Bahamas.”

Pledging that he was “up for a serious fight”, Mr Edwards said he planned to make known what had happened to Sakara Beach Club in all the key US tourist markets that Genting/Resorts World Bimini will be targeting.

Resorts World previously declined to comment on the Sakara Beach Club situation, saying the matter concerned Bimini Bay’s original developers, RAV Bahamas and the Miami-based Capo Group.

RAV Bahamas and Bimini Bay Management previously took Sakara Beach Club and its parent company to court, seeking a declaration that the original lease agreement was ‘null and void’ because Mr Edwards, as an international investor, did not have the relevant International Persons Landholding Act permits.

The case was ultimately thrown out by the Chief Justice in September 2013, almost two months after Sakara Beach Club was demolished.