City OKs 3 a.m. booze ban in South Beach during spring break despite business concerns
The “last call” for alcohol in South Beach will come earlier than usual this spring break.
The Miami Beach City Commission voted Wednesday night to roll back the hours that alcohol sales will close in the city’s entertainment district, from 5 a.m. to 3 a.m. after an extensive debate and feedback from small business owners who said the rollback would hurt their employees.
Mayor Dan Gelber watered down his original proposed booze ban — from lasting 17 days in March to just six. He also requested a 2 a.m. last call, but Commissioner David Richardson brokered the 3 a.m. agreement.
One of two votes against the law was Commissioner Michael Góngora, who said there isn’t a “legitimate safety concern” to warrant closing bars early. The other opposing vote came from Commissioner Micky Steinberg.
“This ordinance is a solution looking for a problem,” Góngora said. “You talk about protecting our brand, but you’re not.”
Gelber’s proposal has undergone multiple changes, as criticisms from bars, hotels and restaurants quickly mounted. Critics, like Góngora, pointed to a 2017 failed ballot referendum to ban alcohol sales after 2 a.m. all year long, which 65% of voters opposed.
The shorter hours will be in effect March 13-18, between the Winter Party Festival in Miami Beach and the Ultra Music Festival, which is held in Miami but brings visitors to Miami Beach.
“I really am sorry that it has an impact on businesses that we value, but we are trying very hard to limit it as much as
we can,” Gelber said at Wednesday’s meeting.
These areas will be affected by the new law: Ocean Drive; Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue from Fifth to 16th streets, and the remaining area between Pennsylvania Avenue and Collins Court from Fifth to 16th streets, including Española Way.
In addition to the limit on alcohol sales, the commission voted in January to fund $500,000 in daytime activities that are scheduled during weekends in March to manage crowds that gather on the beach. The plan, finalized on Wednesday and presented to the commission, would bring free events to the beach off Ocean Drive, from Seventh to 10th streets, said Marcia Monserrat, chief of staff to City Manager Jimmy Morales.
DJ Irie, the official disc jockey of the Miami Heat, will curate the musical performances. Centerplate, a food and beverage corporation, will handle the food, beverages and alcoholic drinks to be sold. ACT Productions will organize the event.
The festival will begin on March 6 and take place every weekend in March. Basketball and volleyball courts will be installed, and the city will offer fitness classes and beach cleanups.
The commission also voted to grant Morales emergency powers for the entire month of March. That power, which he previously held for 72 hours during high-impact periods, includes suspending sidewalk cafe permits or implementing license-plate readers as needed without consulting the commission.
Businesses and the South Beach brand
Since Gelber first proposed rolling back last call on South Beach, the city has been inundated with complaints from businesses and residents in the area.
Among the key criticisms from the business community has been that an earlier last call would not fix the real problem of spring break: masses of young people drinking on the beach during the day.
Employees will work fewer and shorter shifts during one week in the middle of March, a busy month for the tourism industry, business owners said.
Joel Stedman, the owner of the gay nightclub Twist on Washington Avenue, said his staff will lose $20,000 in wages under the law. Several staffers showed up to the meeting to voice their opposition to the law.
Forty percent of the club’s business comes after 2 a.m., Stedman told the commission Wednesday.
“We don’t get busy until 1 a.m.” he said. “These guys are going to lose a lot of money.”
He said while he agreed with “tough love” policing, the problem wasn’t in the clubs.
“Your public safety crisis is on the streets, the sidewalks and the beaches,” Stedman said.
David Wallack, the owner of Mango’s Tropical Café, said his staff figures to lose about a quarter of their income for the week.
While higher level managers and owners will probably “get by” financially, employees will suffer under the new law.
“That’s an electric bill, that’s rent, that’s food for children,” he said. “For what? The people across the street are the problem. The people in our cafes and our businesses are not the problem.”
He said police officers will be working overtime regardless of the new law. But when the clubs close at 3 a.m., the streets of Ocean Drive and in the surrounding area will be flooded with jilted party goers, he said.
“You’re shutting us down for the whole week. The people will not stay home just because some of us are closing at 2 a.m. They are going to crowd the streets.”
Ceci Velasco, the executive director of the Ocean Drive Association, said the 80 hotels in the area are fully booked, and visitors expect the nightlife they were promised.
“They’re going to be here any day now,” she said. “The message they’re going to get is, ‘What you came here for is not what you’re going to get.’”
Barbara Sahara, the manager of Il Giardino on Ocean Drive, said the Italian restaurant normally closes by 3 a.m. but any roll back of the 5 a.m. last call would impact foot traffic in the area and lead visitors to find different evening plans.
“To us, it doesn’t affect us [directly] as much,” she said. “But it affects the [South Beach] brand. Everyone from around the world comes here.”
She said the city should keep alcohol sales the same but station more police on the streets.
“That is what I worry about. Why do they want to hurt Ocean Drive?” she said. “It’s not about alcohol. It’s about police. Where are the police? Right now if you walk on Ocean Drive you won’t see one cop.”
Commissioner Ricky Arriola, who has been a critic of Gelber’s proposal, said it is “bad policy” to foster a late-night party atmosphere most of the year and then change course two weeks before spring break.
“I think what we’re trying to do is solve a problem that is largely taking place out on the streets,” Arriola said. “I think it embarrasses us as a city. I think it’s the wrong approach.”
He called the anti-alcohol sentiment “puritanical.”
Despite his misgivings, he “reluctantly” voted for the law because Miami Beach Police Chief Rick Clements said he supported the rollback.
“If we’re going to try something because we think it’s a matter of public safety, I’m willing to try it but I’d rather try it on a fewer number of days,” he said before the vote.
Ultimately, he said, the commission should work on long-term strategies to protect the area’s character as a party destination while maintaining the peace during busy periods. He suggested, like Gelber did during his State of the City speech on Monday, turning some or all of Ocean Drive into a pedestrian road.
“I’d rather just reposition the entire area than just focus on band-aid approaches like 2 a.m. closures,” he said. “I think we have to aggressively view this district as an asset that needs to be repositioned rather than a liability.”
To prevent a redo of the 11th hour vote, Commissioner Mark Samuelian instructed the city to provide the commissioners an after-action report after spring break and that the administration begin working now on next year’s plan.
Richardson agreed.
“This is absolutely not going to happen next year,” he said. “We should not be here. I am very worried about our brand.”
Police divided on plan
Gelber said the city needs a plan to prevent a repeat of the last couple of years, when the city was almost “ungovernable” due to the crush of visitors who came to South Beach for spring break.
“I don’t profess to think that this is a silver bullet,” he said. “But I think we should try it.”
Clements, the police chief, said he would have liked to see the law extended to the entire month. But the police union that represents the city’s more than 400 officers disagrees.
“Whether that measure is voted in or not isn’t going to change the hours that the officers are working this year,” said Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Millan. “We are going to be out there regardless.”
Less than a month after police were asked to work longer shifts in preparation for the Super Bowl, the department anticipates that officers will again be working 13-hour shifts for much of March to control spring break crowds.
Stopping alcohol sales at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. would not significantly make the officers’ jobs easier, Millan said.
“The people that are coming, they’re not inside,” Millan said. “They bring their own booze. They’re not inside the bars and the restaurants.”
The lawyer representing the Ocean Drive Association said in a letter to the commission on Feb. 21 that the rollback — in any form — would be ineffective in stopping crime.
Alex Tachmes of Shutts & Bowen LLP released data showing that calls to police in the entertainment district were nearly twice as high between noon and 2 a.m. than from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.
Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31, police received 2,185 calls for service in the entertainment district in the early morning hours, or about 1.8 calls per service per hour. From noon to 2 a.m., the figure is 17,542, or 3.2 calls per hour, according to the data.
“Remember that the underlying premise of this ordinance is that crime is allegedly substantially higher after 3:00 a.m. and, therefore, cutting off alcohol sales after 3:00 a.m. will lead to a major decrease in crime,” the law firm wrote to the commission. “However, because there is no evidence to support the claim of increased crime after 3:00 a.m., it follows logically that suspending alcohol sales after 3:00 a.m. would not cause a major decrease in crime. Therefore, this ordinance would be ineffective and bad policy.”
Miami Beach Police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said the department’s view is that the alcohol rollback would help curb early-hour antics.
“Any little bit helps,” he said. “However, we are as an agency preparing and continuing to prepare and adapt to whatever the challenges are.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 2:55 PM.
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