TAMPA, Fla. — A band of Cuban dissidents protested inside an expensive Tampa restaurant Friday night, disrupting a meeting between Cuban ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera and a group of business officials and local politicians.
The protest was around 7:30 p.m. at Mise en Place, the French-inspired fine dining staple near the Oxford Exchange and across from the University of Tampa. The incident was captured on a cell phone of one of the protesters, who chanted anti-Havana regime slogans and questioned the ambassador’s presence in Tampa.
Torres was with her husband and Nora Albertis Monterrey, the Cuban consul in Washington. They were meeting with Guido Maniscalco, the Tampa City Council member who represents West Tampa; Karen Perez, a Hillsborough County School Board member; and Cindy Stuart, the Hillsborough Clerk of Court and Comptroller. Earlier on Friday, Torres met with a group of reporters and editors at the Tampa Bay Times and Centro Tampa, a weekly Spanish-language tabloid owned by the Times Publishing Company.
