Miami Beach is tired of the chaos and wants to tame spring break for good

MIAMI BEACH — After two deadly shootings on Ocean Drive over a weekend in March, Miami Beach leaders followed their recent playbook for dealing with rowdy crowds during spring break: a state of emergency, a midnight curfew and limited liquor sales.

Then, in a new and drastic move, the city commissioners announced a curfew for 2024, a full year in advance, declaring that spring break was over on the sun-drenched streets of Miami Beach.

“Miami Beach is closing its door once and for all during spring break,” Alex J. Fernandez, a city commissioner who sponsored a series of measures for 2024, said ahead of the vote.

The decision, in the middle of March and April, the most profitable time of year for local businesses, has caused both relief and consternation over the potential loss of the throngs of visitors that have come to overwhelm the city’s police and other agencies. public services – and from the money those visitors spend on hotel rooms, nightclub fees and drunken cocktails.

Miami Beach both loves and hates its tourists, a contradictory sentiment that has long plagued officials as the city has evolved from a cocaine cowboy den in the 1980s to a high-fashion Riviera in the 1990s. into what it is today: a glittering playground for affluent families looking for a home, foreigners chasing the sun, and young American visitors looking for a good time. Some people, including the town’s mayor, want the revelers gone for good.

As Miami Beach rebrands as less of a spring break destination and more of a center for arts, culture, and health and wellness, some bar, nightclub, and liquor store owners fear they will lose business. And some residents and officials fear losing the diversity and relaxed vibe that makes Miami Beach Miami Beach.

“What we’re seeing are panicked politicians who feel the need to do something,” Ricky Arriola, a city commissioner who voted against the 2024 curfew, said in an interview. “The government’s heavy hand is imposed on residents, our visitors and businesses, instead of doing the hard work of coming up with truly strategic alternatives.”

Similar frictions between residents and visitors have affected other popular Florida spring break locations such as Panama City Beach. Over time, Fort Lauderdale and other cities pushed out spring breakers, in part by raising hotel rates and changing zoning laws to turn dive bars into more upscale establishments.

Miami Beach is struggling with its reputation as a party city. A judge recently upheld an ordinance imposing a partial 2 a.m. alcohol sales shutdown for a South Beach neighborhood known as South of Fifth, now full of shiny apartments. The law had been challenged by Story, a nightclub that claimed it couldn’t survive if it couldn’t sell alcohol until 5 a.m.

Patience has run out, as spring break revelers, often partying with alcohol or drugs, have occupied a stretch of South Beach about 10 blocks along the Atlantic ocean each season, leading to unpredictable situations that sometimes turn violent because so many people have guns, according to city leaders, police officers and entrepreneurs.

The two fatal incidents occurred this year on St. Patrick’s Day weekend, which is usually one of the busiest of the season. After the second, the city briefly imposed a curfew.

Last year, two shootings on Ocean Drive prompted the city to impose a curfew. In 2021, Miami Beach made headlines when the city, while still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, marketed itself to visitors even as many nightclubs remained closed, leading to rowdy street parties. Officials responded that year by imposing an 8 p.m. curfew.

The rowdy street behavior and resulting curfews have hurt businesses year after year, said Joshua Wallack, the chief operating officer of Mango’s Tropical Cafe, an Ocean Drive institution for more than 30 years.

“If they go from a dangerous situation to a full lockdown, nothing is wrong,” he said. “We’re just caught up in the aftermath of how they’re handling it. The service industry and the hospitality industry are being wiped out completely as it goes from complete chaos to nothing.

In the past, civil rights activists have complained about the city police’s use of military-style vehicles, pepperballs, and forceful crowd control tactics during spring break, drawing many black visitors to a city whose residents are largely white. Glendon Hall, chair of the Miami Beach Black Affairs Advisory Committee, which was formed two years ago, was embedded with police officers and the city’s “goodwill ambassadors” over spring break last month. He said in a statement read at a meeting Tuesday that he was pleased with the way law enforcement officers handled the “massive crowds” this year, and that no major complaints had been received from civil rights groups.

The Miami Beach Police Department made 573 arrests in March, a slight decrease from 615 arrests in March 2022, said Officer Ernesto Rodriguez, a spokesman for the department. Police officers seized more than 100 guns this year, he added.

Despite headlines about shootings and curfews, families, couples and small groups of friends strolled the sidewalks of Ocean Drive on a Friday afternoon late last month. Marcus Benjamin, a 19-year-old student from Chicago, said the city’s emergency measures had “not at all” affected his trip with two of his friends.

“I’ve seen a lot of cops on the beach,” said one of his friends, Cameron Sasser, also 19. “But it’s about the same as other years.”

Still, almost everyone in the city leadership seems to agree that the chaotic rush of spring break has become too much. But when it comes to what to do about it, opinions differ.

Mayor Dan Gelber said spring break “is not befitting a city with so many residents.”

“South Beach has bars and restaurants,” he said, “but it also has elementary schools and churches and synagogues.” Some local residents and lavish visitors often avoid the city during spring break.

Some commissioners, such as Mr Fernandez, have said they want to keep springbreakers, but not “lawbreakers” following them into town.

“The worst thing we can do is continue to do the same thing that we have been doing for several years in a row now, which is to know that our city is going to become overcrowded and to wait for the violent situation to happen – until death occurs – to respond,” he said in an interview. “It is better to anticipate the situation and impose curfews and restrictions now.”

In 2021, Miami Beach lost in court after the Clevelander Hotel sued the city over a law that set a 2 a.m. limit on the sale of alcohol. The judge ruled that the regulation had not been properly implemented.

During the state of emergency over last spring break, stricter rules met with little success in curbing the party scene, according to commissioners such as Mr Arriola, who would prefer a major organized event in March where officials could erect barricades. with ticket entry and metal detectors around Ocean Drive, roughly from Fifth to 15th Streets.

“At least people celebrating spring break at a street party on Ocean Drive can rest easy knowing there won’t be any guns in that area,” he said.

After nearly two decades of seeing crowds grow on another busy time of year, Memorial Day weekend, the city began hosting the Hyundai Air & Sea Show in 2017, featuring the military. The event has displaced many of the revelers who used to gather for Urban Beach Week to celebrate hip-hop.

This year, a three-day festival in March on Ocean Drive and in nearby Lummus Park attracted daytime visitors and, police said, helped tame spring break — but only until the festival’s music and other entertainment ended around 9 p.m. each day. Both shootings took place later in the evening.

With no major event for 2024, the city appears to be considering a spring break lockdown – something Mr Wallack says would be going too far. Miami Beach should be able to offer a multitude of activities, from the arts to wellness to nightlife, without having to sacrifice one for the other, he argued.

“This is a city,” he said.

And anyway, he added, “Good luck shutting down public beaches.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.