Six months after a deadly Memorial Day shooting sparked calls to end Miami Beach’s annual holiday street parties, proposals to pacify both the crowds and the community are taking shape.

On one hand, city administrators are now saying local laws will be strictly enforced this May after several years of tolerating minor offenses such as public drinking.

On the other, business leaders — less than enthused with the idea of enduring the same raucous scenario every Memorial Day weekend —continue to court concert promoters to rebrand Urban Beach Week.

“If we do nothing and something terrible happens, you’ll have people standing in front of City Hall screaming for heads,” said Joshua Wallack, chief operating officer of Mangos Tropical Cafe. “We need to be proactive.”

An unofficial amalgamation of private club parties and street festivities, Urban Beach Week has drawn hundreds of thousands of tourists and day-trippers to South Beach every Memorial Day weekend since 2001.

The parties have been controversial since their inception, when the city was caught off guard and near riots broke out. While some businesses prosper unlike any other weekend, others shutter due to lack of sales or chaotic behavior. Many South Beach locals say they leave town.

Tensions waned somewhat in recent years, but were reinvigorated this Memorial Day when a police confrontation with a wrong-way driver ended with the driver shot dead and three officers injured. Protests and calls to end Urban Beach Week quickly emerged.

In response, the city plans to direct a massive Memorial Day weekend police force to end tolerance of “minor” offenses, such as possessing an open container in public.

City Manager Jorge Gonzalez said Wednesday that he expects to “have more bodies out there, and zero tolerance.”

That, however, is easier said than done.

Miami Beach relies on agencies throughout the county to bolster its police presence, but Gonzalez said the number of officers provided by other agencies has dwindled in recent years as local governments dealt with budget crunches.

Gonzalez said he is lobbying for additional support but has not yet received a commitment on officers from the county, the city’s largest partner in policing the weekend. He said he may suggest the city hire an event security agency to help deal with massive crowds.

As for taking a zero tolerance position, the recent softer approach to enforcement began after the city was roundly criticized in 2006 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP following the arrests of more than 1,000 people.

Gonzalez said the city plans to begin strict enforcement on New Year’s Eve, which should mute criticism of selective enforcement.

If it doesn’t?

“I can live with that,” he said.

But some business owners can’t live with the same event each year, regardless of enforcement tactics.

During Tuesday’s Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce Board of Governor’s meeting, Jason Starkman, owner of Jerry’s Famous Deli, said he will not open his restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend unless something is done to drastically change an event that he says brought bat and knife-wielding patrons into his restaurant this year.

“I’ve heard nothing from anybody that’s going to change anything,” he said. “I don’t want people to get hurt.”

During the meeting, Wallack said he Jerry Libbin, who is both a city commissioner and chamber president, met recently with a Live Nation manager to propose that the national concert promoter host a two-night concert with “Tier-A talent” at the Miami Beach Convention Center in order to get people off of South Beach’s streets and give them something to do. They said a multi-day beach concert could be accomplished by 2013.

The idea is similar to one proffered several months ago by a group of Chicago-based businessmen that said they would host a multi-day concert series on the beach.

Libbin said the group “kind of disappeared,” but he and Wallack believe the concept is still worthwhile.

“The lack of programming and the lack of facilities creates a weekend that disintegrates into a Mardi Gras-style party on Ocean Drive where there’s really nothing to do but drink alcohol and be in the street,” Wallack said during the chamber meeting. “Maybe that’s ok for 100,000 people but not 300,000 people.”

Wallack called the initial discussion with Live Nation an “introductory meeting” and said a second meeting was scheduled Friday, after the deadline for this story.