How do you party on New Year’s in Key West during a COVID curfew? Police had a reminder
In hard-drinking, party-loving Key West, 2020 ran out quietly. Empty streets and shuttered bars greeted the new year.
Just before, police, flashing their blue lights and sounding their sirens, paraded down Duval Street on horseback, motorcycles, in cars and foot. The message was simple: “The curfew is in effect. Go home.”
So instead of New Year’s “drops” and early morning boozing on Duval Street, the city’s curfew, meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 during one of the busiest times of the year, shut down businesses by 10 p.m. and forced people off the streets.
The nightly curfew, which began New Year’s Eve and ended at 6 a.m. Sunday, went relatively smoothly, city officials said Monday.
Sixteen people were arrested, including one restaurant owner who city officials said refused to close on time. And there was some grumbling and profanities from Duval Street partygoers. But for the most part, people complied when told to go home.
Nonessential businesses, including restaurants, bars and T-shirt shops, were ordered to close by 10 p.m. and people were told to go home or to their hotels by 10:30 p.m. starting on New Year’s Eve. People could still visit essential businesses, such as grocery stores, gas stations and the airport.
“I think it went remarkably well, actually,” said Key West Mayor Teri Johnston, whose emergency order placed a curfew on the biggest party night of the year. It was the only New Year’s curfew in the Keys.
Johnston cited the arrest count as evidence that the three-night curfew was enforced successfully.
“It’s really nothing more than we normally have,” Johnston said. “We got the word out early. The hotels helped.
“When you got loaded onto that paddy wagon, you needed to be loaded on that paddy wagon,” Johnston said.
Police and code officers weren’t the only city employees on the streets over the weekend nights enforcing the curfew. City Manager Greg Veliz and Assistant City Manager Patti McLauchlin walked the curfew beat, too.
“I’ve been called things I’ve never been called before,” Veliz said Monday morning. “And I’ve been called a lot of things.”
Veliz said most businesses cooperated with the curfew, which he called a difficult decision to make with an island packed with tourists.
“I feel terrible they lost out on business or that anyone was prohibited from making a dollar they could have made that night,” Veliz said “From that standpoint, it wasn’t a success.”
Code Compliance Director Jim Young spent three nights reminding people to mask up and to leave after 10 p.m. On New Year’s Eve, he recalled about 100 people gathered in the 200 block of Duval, all lingering as curfew passed.
All he could think was, “Oh boy, here we go,“ Young said. But after chanting some phrases, including, “USA USA,” and “Four more years!” people took off once the police’s mounted patrol — and the city’s street sweepers — began clearing the block.
“You can’t do much to stop a 2,000-pound horse,” said Police Chief Sean Brandenburg, who praised the 40 or so officers he placed on the street for the curfew nights.
Brandenburg said the first night it took about 40 minutes for police to clear Duval Street.
“New Year’s Eve, they were pretty hostile,” Young said. “Then Friday wasn’t as bad as Thursday and on Saturday it was very calm.”
Young said overall he had no physical run-ins with partygoers. He was shoved once, by a young man who chased after Young so he could face him and hold up both of his middle fingers.
“Is that your IQ or your age?” Young asked him, before turning away.
One of those people placed into the paddy wagon on New Year’s Eve was Joe Walsh, who owns several restaurants on Duval Street.
City officials weren’t surprised. Walsh had sent an email earlier that day saying the curfew wasn’t a real rule and he didn’t have to comply, Veliz said.
Walsh, 54, was outside his Fogarty’s restaurant, 227 Duval St., when police took him into custody on a second-degree misdemeanor for allegedly violating the curfew order.
About 50 people were still at the outdoor restaurant at about 10:50 p.m., according to the arrest report.
Asked several times to close up, Walsh “made no attempts to have patrons exit the business,” police wrote. He was released from the county jail on Stock Island the next day without having to post a bond.
Veliz and Young said Walsh told them he was closed.
“There were people everywhere,” Veliz said. “I walked away because I’m not going to get into an argument with him.”
Walsh complied with the curfew the next two nights, Veliz said.
“He closed right in line with everyone else,” he said.
Reached Monday, Walsh said the mayor’s order wasn’t valid under the governor’s Sept. 25 order that ended state and some local COVID restrictions.
“The city broke the law,” Walsh said. “They prevented me from working and they prevented my business from operating. I should not have been arrested.”
Walsh said “the largest gathering of people unrelated were the city police department and code standing in front of me.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 1:14 PM.
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