Want to take a walk? Stick to the street. Miami-Dade closes beaches and parks
All beaches in Miami-Dade must close under a sweeping county order that covers most recreational areas, restricting people to walks on the street but not public gathering spots.
The latest order by Mayor Carlos Gimenez, described Thursday morning by a top deputy, reverses the mayor’s policy issued just a day before, which capped gatherings in parks to fewer than 10 people. By Wednesday night, the decision was made to scrap the more permissive directive for an outright ban on using parkland or beaches, said Michael Spring, Gimenez’s deputy who oversees parks.
“You cannot take a walk in a park,” Spring said. “But you can take a walk down the street you live on.”
The order has not been made public, but Spring said it took effect Thursday. “We’re closed, effective 9 a.m.,” Spring said.
There’s been widespread frustration at vacationers and locals ignoring directives from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Miami Beach to limit gatherings on the beaches and beyond as the coronavirus shutdown collided with South Florida’s spring break season. In issuing his directive Wednesday capping gatherings in county parks, Gimenez said: “You can’t have a party in a park,” he said.
The latest measure will make Thursday a test of Miami-Dade’s ability to enforce the most sweeping directive yet to shut down the region’s top tourism draw: its beaches.
Gimenez also said he’s planning to expand closures of restaurants, bars and other entertainment spots to include all “non-essential” businesses. Details on that order are expected to be released later Thursday.
In Miami Beach, an order from DeSantis on Tuesday limiting groups larger than 10 from public beaches did little to slow down spring breakers.
The city had already closed some of its most popular beaches, from Fifth to 15th streets on Ocean Drive, but the rest of the city’s beaches remained open.
For Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, sending home the spring break crowd feels a lot like a father grounding his teenage son.
“I am fully and completely aware of the arguments and the attitude of this group,” said Gelber, who has two college-age daughters and a son in high school. “My kids are discovering cooking and new board games and they’re having multi-facetime conversations and they’re doing school actually.”
The trickle of emergency orders coming from City Hall, which started last Friday with a directive requiring restaurants to limit their occupancy, has felt like the “slow motion” removal of a band-aid, Gelber said.
It has now been ripped off, he said.
“This is deadly serious,” Gelber said.
The combined forces of spring breakers converging on an island city during a pandemic made Miami Beach the “tip of the spear” for Florida’s efforts to control the spread of the virus, Gelber said.
Senior centers in Miami Beach have been closed for over a week. City-sponsored activities to get older residents out of their homes have been canceled due to the virus.
City Manager Jimmy Morales, who has the sole power to order emergency rules, has not been able to visit his mother at one of the city’s senior homes because of the risks coronavirus poses to vulnerable people.
Still, spring breakers appeared on TV broadcasts and Instagram videos flouting public health guidelines with impunity.
“If I get corona, I get corona,” one spring breaker told Reuters. “At the end of the day, I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying”
“I think they’re blowing it way out of proportion,” another spring breaker said, according to CBS News.
Commissioner Mark Samuelian said it was “telling” that a full-on beach closure was necessary to keep kids from staying away — and potentially breaking the chain of transmission.
“The vast majority of Miami Beach residents are doing the right thing,” Samuelian said. “It is the younger folks and students that haven’t gotten the message as clearly as we needed them to.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 10:15 AM.
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