As COVID-19 cases spike, Miami will enforce midnight curfew as of this weekend
Miami city police will start enforcing a countywide midnight curfew this weekend after commissioners unanimously voted Thursday to follow the Miami-Dade rule while COVID-19 cases spike.
City police, code enforcement staff and fire inspectors will immediately start educating business owners inside Miami city limits about the change before issuing citations over the weekend. Police Chief Jorge Colina said officers would start notifying people Thursday night and begin enforcement over the weekend, though he did not specify which day.
“So it’ll start over the weekend, but certainly we’re going to start going out there now to notify people that we’re going to be enforcing,” he told el Nuevo Herald.
Officials will be empowered to issue citations, but fines are not collectible because Gov. Ron DeSantis stripped local governments of most of their enforcement powers in September. Tickets do not have to be paid until after the governor lifts his order. Municipal leaders have said they could better control the virus if DeSantis allowed tougher enforcement.
Nevertheless, Miami commissioners heeded calls from public health officials and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava for a unified enforcement effort ahead of the holidays.
“I commend the city of Miami for its commitment to work in partnership with our county and municipalities to ensure the health and safety of our residents and businesses,” Levine Cava said in a statement. “I am committed to working closely with all our city leaders, businesses, and health experts to keep our economy moving forward while also ensuring our residents remain healthy. To get through this crisis, we need to stand together as a united Miami-Dade community.”
The Miami commission agreed to reverse its position on the curfew from Oct. 22, when it called off city police and code inspectors in an effort to give businesses some space after months of pandemic restrictions. The city initially backed off the curfew following an early court victory for Tootsie’s strip club, which had challenged the restriction. Even after the matter was appealed and the curfew was revived, Miami held back on enforcement.
Commissioner Joe Carollo proposed the measure as coronavirus cases surge — a trend that led Jackson Health System CEO Carlos Migoya to write a letter to Carollo urging the city to bring back the curfew.
“The evidence for a curfew’s impact is not necessarily as strong as the evidence for mask wearing, physical distancing and proper hand hygiene,” Migoya wrote. “In our community, however, well-enforced curfews earlier this year did coincide with declines in the key measures of COVID-19’s spread.”
Carollo read the full letter during the meeting while urging his colleagues to heed Migoya’s advice to try to stop hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
“With winter upon us, the data is heading in the wrong direction: increased positivity, increased hospitalizations, increased demand for critical-care beds,” Migoya wrote.
Carollo also pointed to videos of bustling bars and nightclubs from recent television news reports. For months, Carollo has resisted loosening restrictions on nightlife establishments in Miami for fear that allowing late-night partying at bars and clubs would foster the spread of COVID-19.
“Look, none of us want to see us going back to mid-March where everything was closed down, because if the virus won’t kill us, the economy will,” Carollo said as he introduced his resolution. “But at the same time, when more than 99% of our businesses are complying and doing their best to keep us safe ... we cannot have a few ruin it for everybody.”
The city has continued to punish some businesses with flagrant or repeated violations of COVID-19 restrictions, enforcing one-day closures for violators with unmasked people on the dance floor, large parties at the same table, loud music and a lack of hand sanitizer. City records show more than 200 instances since July in which officials have closed businesses for violating curfew, lack of social distancing or allowing patrons to go without face masks inside.
Still, some of Miami’s nightlife establishments have been observed operating as if there were no pandemic — packed indoor spaces with few face masks and virtually no social distancing. This week, WLTV Univision 23 reported on several nightclubs following few, if any, of the rules designed to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Colina noted part of the issue when he told commissioners that off-duty officers were found ignoring obvious crowding and mask violations. He said he suspended off-duty work temporarily until the department could give clear direction on enforcement expectations.
“There were officers that were stationed at some of these establishments where enforcement was not happening,” Colina said. “It isn’t just that you prevent fights, robberies, break-ins, etc. No, every law, including emergency orders, applies.”
Meanwhile, confirmed coronavirus cases continue to mount each day. Florida’s Department of Health on Thursday confirmed 11,335 additional cases of COVID-19 — the most in in a single-day report since July. More than 2,200 of those cases are in Miami-Dade County. The two-week average positivity rate, a key indicator of COVID’s spread in the community, was 8.8% in Miami-Dade.
Commissioners Manolo Reyes and Ken Russell both expressed sympathy for businesses who have suffered through the economic downturn during the pandemic. Reyes suggested lifting the curfew once the city’s two-week positivity rate decreases. After Carollo suggested setting the threshold at 5.5%, the resolution passed unanimously.
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 8:41 PM.
