As COVID-19 persists, parties do, too. A new 8 p.m. curfew will lock down South Beach.
First, the curfew was 12:30 a.m. Then, the county made it 10 p.m. But after those did little to limit crowds in South Beach, the city of Miami Beach has imposed an 8 p.m. curfew in its entertainment district — the third curfew in the city in July alone.
City Manager Jimmy Morales, who as the Beach’s top administrator has sole decision-making powers during the COVID-19 state of emergency, signed an emergency order Friday afternoon imposing the earlier curfew in the city’s South Beach entertainment district Ocean Drive, Washington Avenue and Collins Avenue from Fifth to 16th streets.
The new order will take effect Saturday. The rest of the city remains under a 10 p.m. curfew imposed by Miami-Dade County.
The earlier curfew would require all businesses to close at 8 p.m., except for restaurant delivery service. The new order comes as city leaders have expressed concern about large gatherings of partying young people on Ocean Drive and across South Beach. The curfew also extends between Pennsylvania Avenue and Collins Court from Fifth to 16th streets, except for the stretch of Espanola Way between Washington and Pennsylvania avenues.
Videos of people dancing, drinking and — in at least one case — fighting in South Beach have led some residents to complain and ask for tougher measures.
“We have to take control of our streets,” Commissioner David Richardson said. “I am going to prioritize public safety over everything else.”
The order does not further restrict an 8 p.m. ban on alcohol sales at retail stores. Morales previously said he wanted to impose a 5 p.m. cutoff in the entertainment district. To better enforce face-mask and social-distancing rules, police will deploy more officers in the area.
“Given the extreme conditions we have seen this past week and the spiking COVID-19 numbers, I think more restrictive measures are required,” Morales wrote to the commission in a memo Wednesday.
Under the order, Ocean Drive will close to vehicular traffic beginning Saturday. The city will also prohibit parking between Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue from Fifth to 15th streets at 6 p.m. everyday.
Morales did not require a commission vote to impose the curfew, but he asked commissioners for input during a Friday morning meeting that stretched into the afternoon.
Two commissioners who spoke on the issue, Mark Samuelian and Steven Meiner, said they supported the curfew. The commission voted during the meeting to extend the city manager’s emergency powers through July 29.
The new curfew will be more narrowly focused than the city’s previous 12:30 a.m. curfew and Miami-Dade County’s 10 p.m. curfew. The city’s first curfew was imposed July 2. The more restrictive county curfew went into effect the next day.
This article was updated to reflect that the emergency order does not further restrict an 8 p.m. alcohol sales cutoff.
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 2:55 PM with the headline "As COVID-19 persists, parties do, too. A new 8 p.m. curfew will lock down South Beach.."
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