Ultra, Calle Ocho canceled, but Miami cops can get plenty of extra work on Miami Beach
For the Miami cops who were planning on gobs of overtime during the now-canceled Ultra Music and Calle Ocho festivals, fear not: There’s plenty of off-duty work available during spring break on Miami Beach.
Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements said this week that it took him about five minutes to decide to offer Miami police officers the extra work this month at one of the world’s spring break meccas.
The chief’s reasoning for the Miami hires, though, is geared more toward the health of his officers than just flooding the beach’s streets with cops during three of the busiest, rowdiest weekends of the year, he said.
“We worked guys really hard during the Super Bowl and we saw how taxing it was on them,” said Clements.
Though the Feb. 2 Super Bowl was in North Dade’s Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Beach was flooded with tens of thousands of visitors in the week leading up to the game, especially in and around the Miami Beach Convention Center, which hosted the interactive Super Bowl Experience.
Before Miami leaders decided to shut down Ultra and Calle Ocho, Miami Beach cops — who regularly work four-day shifts — were told they would have to work 13-hour days and six-day weeks, as spring breakers descended on South Beach. Now, Clements said, they have a choice: If they want to work their regular shifts, fine. If they want the overtime, that’s fine too, he said.
The city has budgeted an extra $2.7 million to pay for policing during the break. The hiring of Miami cops to work off duty may actually offset some of the cost, because paying off-duty fees is substantially less than overtime. Miami also will benefit from the move, as the city receives a percentage of each off-duty shift an officer works.
“It’s really not about a benefit to us,” said Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina. “Chief Clements called and said ‘My guys are taxed, can you help out.’ Normally, because of Ultra and Calle Ocho, our guys are tired, too. But there are some officers who count on working [overtime during] Calle Ocho and Ultra. So this helps.”
Miami leaders decided to postpone the electronic musical extravaganza known as Ultra, which draws tens of thousands of mostly youngsters from around the globe, out of fear over the possible spread of coronavirus. It was scheduled for March 20-22 at Bayfront Park. The city also announced Friday it was canceling the March 15 Calle Ocho Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of people yearly to Little Havana for performances, food and other activities.
But across Biscayne Bay, coronavirus fears won’t stop the party in Miami Beach. City officials said on Thursday that spring break will go on as planned, as will big-time parties Winter Party Festival and Winter Music Conference, which are scheduled for this month.
Spring break overwhelms Miami Beach
The annual crush of college kids cramming into South Beach’s small entertainment district has consistently overwhelmed Miami Beach’s resources.
In 2018, some clubs shut down early amid stampedes on Ocean Drive and the police closed the MacArthur Causeway to incoming drivers.
Last year, spring break got so out of hand that police in riot gear fanned out across the beach, and city leaders called an emergency meeting to make the party “less fun.”
This time around, the City Commission pledged $500,000 to set up concerts, food and drink stations and sports activities on the sands of South Beach. Revelers will be sequestered within fencing, where they’ll be able to drink alcohol within view of police and enjoy music organized by local artist DJ Irie.
Clements told the city that sponsored programming would make policing the crowds easier, since officers wouldn’t have to aimlessly roam the beachfront looking for open containers or pugilistic partiers — and spring breakers will have some place to be for much of the day.
The events, dubbed “Myami Beach,” will take place from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. beginning Friday and spanning the weekend. It will resume on March 12 and last until March 22.
Mayor Dan Gelber said a combination of an earlier last call — the commission voted to make it 3 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. from March 13-18 — and daytime activities would help keep the peace during spring break.
In a Feb. 26 commission meeting, he said the enclosed events would help contain what the city had previously controlled by “sending police in what looks like riot gear onto the beach.”
Gelber said canvassing the sands with police is a “horrible policing situation for our cops and really for our visitors.”
Commissioner Ricky Arriola said the city is trying to learn from the mistakes of 2019, where police were given “no containment and no programming” for the throngs of students in the area.
“Left to their own devices, the kids congregated in large groups,” he said. “Unfortunately, we had a few days where they broke out into spontaneous fights.”
He said the goal this year is to keep the party safe, while still showing people a good time.
“Hopefully they’ll have a better time than they did last year, they’ll behave better and it’ll make the cops’ lives a little easier,” he said.
Off-duty work for Miami cops has been a sore spot for the department, mainly because the antiquated system used in Miami makes it hard to track who’s working where and what hours. Miami’s independent auditor, Theodore Guba, released a report in January that showed Miami cops working outside jobs made an extra $18.9 million atop their salaries in 2018.
The study also found that dozens of officers over a four-year period worked what amounted to full-time jobs while on the clock. One officer even managed to put in for 3,714 hours of extra duty in a single year. Coupled with his city job, that amounts to 18 hours a day for 365 straight days.
A major issue with the off-duty work in Miami is that most of it is done without the knowledge of the department, with private entities paying the officers in cash or by check. Guba wondered in the report if it could create a conflict of interest, with police becoming more loyal to the outside employer than the Miami Police Department.
But with the Beach hiring of the Miami officers for spring break, Colina said, he’ll know exactly when, where and how many hours each cop is working during their off-duty shifts. And that, “without a doubt,” the chief said, benefits his department.
Though Miami Beach officers can still work the overtime if they wish, Clements said, they’re limited through collective bargaining to work no more than an 18-hour shift and 72 hours a week.
“Everyone will still be working,” said the chief. “But fortunately, with Miami’s cancellation of Calle Ocho and Ultra, we can tap into that as well.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 3:09 PM.
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