Miami Beach moves to crack down on ‘bad behavior’ on Ocean Drive, especially in bars
The Miami Beach City Commission took significant steps Wednesday to crack down on “bad behavior” in South Beach — especially during spring break — tentatively approving a plan to move up last call on Ocean Drive and officially requiring bars to hire off-duty police officers.
But city leaders were far from united.
Mayor Dan Gelber’s proposal to move up last call along Ocean Drive and near the South Beach entertainment district received initial approval, although he was forced to water down his original plan, which would have moved it from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m.
“We need to do this,” Gelber said. “For all of the wonderful feeling that we have after the Super Bowl … at the end of the day, think back to what happened in March [2019].”
Gelber said he wanted to curb the bad behavior the city experiences during spring break, while not resorting to establishing an “armed state” with the police department like last spring break. Complaints about raucous crowds sparked an emergency meeting of city officials in March 2019.
Gelber called the spring break experience “one of the worst things that our city has ever had to withstand.”
His colleagues — and members of the business community — shared a sense of urgency about limiting chaos during spring break, but they disagreed about how to solve the problem.
“We don’t want a shock to go around the world,” said David Wallack, owner of Mango’s Tropical Café. “We don’t want to create a wholesale depression here.”
Wallack said most college-age revelers don’t visit his club. They hang out on the beach and cause problems when the sun goes down.
Several business owners and representatives addressed the commission, voicing concerns that the city’s brand and tourism industry would suffer during spring break.
“We all understand you’re between a rock and a hard place,” said Jerry Libbin, president and CEO of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. “We want to try to find the best soft landing if we can.”
After initially proposing a 17-day period when alcohol sales at bars and clubs along Ocean Drive and near the entertainment district would be limited, Gelber relented during Wednesday’s meeting after realizing he could not secure four of seven votes.
Along with Gelber, Commissioners Mark Samuelian, Micky Steinberg, Steven Meiner and David Richardson voted in favor of reducing the period to 12 days and setting last call at 3 a.m. Commissioners Ricky Arriola and Michael Gongora voted against the proposal.
The proposal will go to a final vote on Feb. 26.
The commission voted to defer a proposal from City Manager Jimmy Morales to expand his emergency powers during high-impact periods like spring break from 72 hours to an entire month.
Arriola accused Morales of manipulating the commission, arguing that the city administration acted too slowly to present the board with ideas for preventing a repeat of spring break 2019.
“I feel like we were misled, we were manipulated,” he said. “A year ago we told you what we wanted.”
He referenced the abrupt resignation of the city’s tourism and cultural director, Matt Kenny, as a symptom of the problem in the city’s planning.
“I still haven’t seen a plan,” Arriola said about plans to provide counter-programming in March. “The person who was driving that resigned yesterday.”
A city spokeswoman confirmed Kenny’s resignation, but did not provide a letter of resignation. Kenny did not respond to a request for comment.
Arriola panned a presentation Kenny gave in January, outlining the city’s plan for offering concerts and activities to spring breakers on Lummus Park. City staff had asked for $1.5 million, but received $500,000 after commissioners said the plan appeared rushed.
Visitors to South Beach will also notice a beefed-up police presence at Ocean Drive bars later this month, after the commission passed a law requiring that bars hire off-duty officers on weekends.
The commission unanimously approved a proposal Wednesday mandating that businesses between Fifth and 15th streets on Ocean Drive that serve alcohol past midnight retain the services of a Miami Beach Police officer from 12 a.m. until 30 minutes past closing time. Businesses will only be required to station off-duty police outside their property on Saturdays and Sundays and, during holiday weekends or city-sponsored events, from Saturday to Monday.
Restaurants that close by 2 a.m. and hotel bars are generally exempt from the law, which will take effect in 10 days.
The law, which received support from the Ocean Drive Association business group, was sponsored by Gelber and Arriola.
Arriola said the law would “help crowd control” along the South Beach corridor.
“As we know, the Ocean Drive area is heavily trafficked,” he said. “We have a lot of guests come to enjoy themselves.”
The proposal had undergone significant changes since it was introduced in December. The original language would have required off-duty officers seven days a week.
Closing time in Miami Beach can be as late as 5 a.m. But even if a business were to close at 2 a.m., the union-set minimum shift for off-duty officers is four hours.
It costs about $350 a night for one officer, at a rate of $65 or $70 per hour, including an administrative fee collected by the city. Currently, seven businesses on Ocean Drive use off-duty police services.
In a memo to the commission supporting the law, the city administration said that calls to police are more prevalent on Ocean Drive after midnight and into the early hours of the morning.
The “prolonged consumption of liquor,” the memo said, may lead to “criminal activity, disorderly conduct, undesirable noise” and other quality-of-life offenses.
“In that regard, the Police Department has determined that the presence of an off-duty police officer at those alcoholic beverage establishments serving alcoholic beverages later than 12 a.m. will ameliorate a portion of that behavior and conduct, exhibited by intoxicated individuals, which implicates and threatens the safety, security and welfare of the City’s residents, visitors, and businesses,” the memo reads.
The law marks the latest chapter in the history of policing on Ocean Drive.
Miami Beach police briefly suspended off-duty service at bars and clubs in 2014 after a sergeant drank on the job and unholstered his weapon during an overtime shift at Mango’s. Sgt. Mike Muley was fired but returned to his job in 2016 after an independent arbiter ruled he could return to work if he successfully completed rehabilitation and was declared medically fit.
The off-duty ban was lifted two months after Muley’s incident. But the police department enacted new rules prohibiting officers from working at the same businesses every weekend. The new rules also stipulated that cops stay outside the bars and clubs unless police action is needed inside. Wednesday’s action did not change those rules.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 12:15 PM.
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