Miami Beach, looking for a quieter spring break, imposes a curfew

Escalating its aggressive push for a quieter spring break, Miami Beach announced a three-night curfew on Friday, citing the large crowds it expects during what has typically been the peak weekend of the season.

The curfew will run from midnight to 6 a.m. every night until Monday, City Manager Alina T. Hudak announced Friday morning. It will only apply to South Beach, the part of the city most popular with tourists and party goers.

“We did not make this decision lightly, but it should not come as a surprise,” Ms. Hudak said in the announcement. “We have been very clear about our intent to protect the public from the dangerous chaos that spring break has caused in recent years.”

The sale of alcoholic beverages for “consumption off the premises” – read: on the street – is also prohibited after 6 p.m. on any day that the curfew is in force.

How to get spring break under control has become a dominant question for Miami Beach leaders since rowdy crowds flocked to the city every March after the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Some of the city’s tactics have sparked accusations of over-policing and racism, as well as lawsuits over civil rights violations. This is the fourth year in a row that Miami Beach has imposed a spring break emergency curfew.

Mayor Steven Meiner and several commissioners — who were elected in November on a law-and-order platform — debuted a digital ad campaign last month saying the city was “splitting up over spring break.” They introduced a whole series of measures for last weekend and this weekend, traditionally the busiest of the season, including the use of license plate readers, limiting access to the beach, closing public car parks and banning terraces on the popular Ocean Drive.

As a result, there were fewer crowds on the streets of South Beach last weekend.

But this weekend is also St. Patrick’s Day – another opportunity to party – and the city says it’s already starting to look busier. And city leaders decided to be more proactive than in the past two years, when the curfew was only imposed after shootings on Ocean Drive.

“We did not impose this curfew in response to a specific incident,” city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier said in a statement. “We were very clear and consistent in our marketing materials and direct communications that a curfew would likely be in place during spring break.”

Even before the announcement of Friday’s curfew, some entrepreneurs got to work had said they were sufferingwith a decrease in turnover due to the smaller crowds.

In October, the city sent businesses a letter with attached legislation approved by the commissioners that allowed the city manager to declare a state of emergency during spring break and impose extraordinary measures, including a curfew, if necessary. Last April, the city announced a curfew through 2024, nearly a year in advance, though commissioners later backed off that idea, opting to allow a curfew if necessary.

Some residents have welcomed the crackdown on revelers.

“If it gets so loud that no one can enjoy themselves, then that’s a problem,” said Marilyn Freundlich, who lives in the Sunset Harbor neighborhood of South Beach.

But Jared Galbut, co-founder and CEO of Bodega, a taqueria with a location in South Beach, wrote Friday on X that the city could have announced the curfew earlier this weekend.

The decision’s announcement on Friday, after companies had set their schedules and made plans for entertainment, “demonstrates the lack of thoughtfulness in making these decisions,” he wrote. “Last weekend was the right medicine, strong police, businesses open and zero problems.”