Palm Beach officials could push to shut down Mar-a-Lago in dispute about road closures near Trump compound

Indefinite, round-the-clock road closures around Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound are frustrating Palm Beach officials and residents to the point that the Florida club and residence could be forced to shut down.

On Tuesday, Palm Beach Council directed town staff to study what could be done about the month-long shutdown, which has closed off surrounding roads in the wake of the attempted assassination of the Republican presidential nominee.

“In my mind, if the road is closed, the Mar-a-Lago Club is closed,” Mayor Danielle Moore told the council, according to the Palm Beach Post, when asked what will happen when traffic is expected to increase during a busier fall season.

“There’s no way in God’s green earth that they can bring 350 people into that club,” Moore said. “It’s completely illogical that you’ve got a road closed and then you’re going to let 350 strangers into your club.”

The property, Trump’s primary residence, cannot sustain hundreds of guests while Secret Service is significantly ramping up security, Moore argued.

“You can’t have it both ways, boys and girls,” according to Moore. “Either the club’s open or not.”

Officials have directed town staff to explore their legal options. Town attorney Joanne O’Conner has sent a letter to the Secret Service to “provide the legal authority authorizing it to implement the road closure for the specified duration and even when protectee(s) are not in residence in the Town.”

The closure, O’Conner wrote, “effectively cuts the Town in two.”

Secret Service directed road closures after a 20-year-old gunman fired an AR-15 at the former president while he was speaking on a campaign rally stage in Pennsylvania on July 13. The closure went into effect on July 20, part of a series of security maneuvers around Trump’s properties, including additional law enforcement outside Trump Tower in Manhattan and his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.

Mar-a-Lago has repeatedly come under scrutiny from government officials and law enforcement since Trump got permission to operate the property as his private social club in 1993.

The former president purchased Mar-a-Lago — a 62,500-square-foot mansion designated a national historical landmark in 1969 — for roughly $10 million in 1985.

After falling into financial dire straits, Trump told town officials that he wasn’t able to keep up with annual maintenance costs of $3m and pitched a plan to subdivide the property. The town rejected it.

But Trump was allowed to turn the property into a private club, opening up a line of cash flow by collecting annual dues and fees.

Trump had received a special exception to use the property as a club within a residential zoning district — an agreement that Mar-a-Lago’s neighbors included in their 2021 challenge to Trump’s claim to use the property as his primary legal residence.

Then-Palm Beach attorney Skip Randolph argued at the time that the agreement did not necessarily prevent Trump from living there; he is allowed to stay under a zoning designation that allows private clubs to allow living space to “bona fide employee.”

Palm Beach also has authority to revoke Mar-a-Lago’s occupational license if the property is determined to be in violation of a declaration-of-use agreement.

For years, the former president has bloated Mar-a-Lago’s estimated value, according to a judge who presided over a sweeping fraud case targeting Trump’s real estate empire.

The former president had estimated the property’s value between $426m - $612m. Its actual value is between $18m and $27.6m, according to findings from New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York Justice Arthur Engoron.

The attorney general’s office has not filed notice of the $464m judgment against Trump in Palm Beach. Trump has also appealed Engoron’s judgment.