Broward cities want to reopen beaches after Memorial Day. The county won’t commit.
After two months of closures, the mayors of coastal cities in Broward County are pushing for a May 26 reopening of beaches for exercise. But county officials seem reluctant to jump ahead of Miami-Dade, whose mayor has not yet indicated he’s willing to take that step.
At a press conference Thursday in Doral, Broward County Mayor Dale Holness mentioned the 26th as the earliest possible date that Broward’s beaches could reopen. But he was vague about whether that would actually happen, saying he and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez agree “it’s best that we do it together as a region.”
“If we open one section and the others are not open, then we’ll have a problem,” Holness said, referring to concerns that South Florida residents could all flock to whichever beaches open first.
On a conference call Wednesday, the mayors of seven coastal cities in Broward, including Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, told county officials they want to reopen their beaches May 26, the day after Memorial Day.
The mayors were eager to take that step on beaches — which have been closed since mid-March to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus — while putting rules in place that would prevent people from lounging in chairs or gathering in large groups.
“It’s time for us to open our beaches on the 26th, provided [COVID-19] test results continue in a positive direction,” Pompano Beach Mayor Rex Hardin told the Miami Herald.
There’s consensus on that point among the mayors of Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Hallandale Beach, Deerfield Beach, Dania Beach, and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, according to three mayors who were on Wednesday’s call with Holness and Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry.
But the mayors said Henry, who would ultimately need to sign an executive order authorizing the move, was non-committal about the May 26 date and also wants to coordinate with Miami-Dade.
“That was disappointing,” Hardin said. “ As the coastal mayors, we are ready to basically draw a line in the sand and say, ‘It’s time to open on [that] date.’”
That timeline, if Broward County were to follow it, would likely put it ahead of Miami-Dade County. Gimenez said April 19 that there was “no timeline” for reopening beaches, and he hasn’t indicated any willingness to move forward in the weeks since.
Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, has said his city doesn’t anticipate reopening its 7.5 miles of beaches until June at the earliest.
But Broward’s coastal mayors say they’re feeling pressure from residents who see the beaches as an extension of local parks, which were allowed to open countywide in late April with social distancing rules in place. While most of the mayors felt it made sense to wait until after Memorial Day to avoid a potential rush over the holiday weekend, they didn’t want to wait any longer than that.
“I think we’re on a path to opening whether or not Miami-Dade intends to open their beaches,” said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis. “We should not be tethered to any decision that Miami-Dade would be looking to make. We have our own communities to worry about.”
Joy Cooper, the mayor of Hallandale Beach, echoed that sentiment.
“We would like to work collectively, but we’re Broward,” Cooper said. “We can understand that each county has differences. Miami Beach is different than Fort Lauderdale beach.”
To Broward’s north, Palm Beach County jumped ahead of its South Florida counterparts last week by announcing its beaches would reopen May 18. Palm Beach County also got the go-ahead from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to start reopening restaurants and other non-essential retailers May 11, a week sooner than Broward and Miami-Dade will take that step.
Public health experts say COVID-19 spreads less easily outside than inside, but there are still concerns that a lack of social distancing on the beach, coupled with the beach’s potential to attract tourists and out-of-towners from around the region, could contribute to the spread of the disease.
In Naples on Florida’s southwest coast, the city shut down its beaches Sunday less than a week after reopening them in response to photographs Saturday that showed the beaches packed with people.
Many of those people had umbrellas set up and were lounging in beach chairs, which the Broward mayors say would be banned under their proposals. Even sitting down on the sand could be forbidden, said Cooper, the Hallandale Beach mayor. She added that, because hotels are closed in Broward County, she wouldn’t expect the reopening of beaches to attract a flock of tourists.
Plus, Cooper said, the cities would always have the option to reverse course.
“Even if [the beaches] open, we’re still going to reserve the right to close them down,” she said.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 1:55 PM.
