Coronavirus: South Beach curfew, restaurant closures will last until late April
After becoming the first major Florida city to put new rules in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Miami Beach is extending its broad emergency measures until April 23.
The city has already closed restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and other similar businesses within its borders. It enacted a 24-7 closure of some of its most popular public beaches and rolled out a midnight curfew along South Beach’s busiest strips.
Those new measures, which were set to expire Friday at midnight, will be the new normal in Miami Beach for at least the next five weeks.
The City Commission voted Wednesday to extend the extraordinary decision-making abilities of City Manager Jimmy Morales, who as the city’s head administrator wields unilateral power in emergency situations. Because state law allows cities to use emergency powers for only seven days at a time, the commission voted to extend the new rules in a series of seven-day increments. If at any time, a commissioner or the mayor thinks the new measures are going too far, he or she can request that a special commission meeting be organized to vote on abolishing — or extending — the emergency orders.
“I congratulate you all for making tough decisions to try to stem the tide on this stuff,” Morales said.
Because Miami Beach is a hospitality mecca, and during the month of March its public beaches become all-day gathering spots for young spring breakers, the coronavirus pandemic affects the city’s way of life more acutely than most major cities in the state.
As such, Miami-Dade County and even the state have looked to Miami Beach when making decisions to, for example, close bars and clubs or limit beach access to groups of no more than 10 people.
On Tuesday, Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Jennifer Moon announced sweeping closures of businesses, including restaurants that seat more than eight people, bars, gyms and entertainment venues. That new order, which came after exhaustive conversations with Miami Beach, strikes a similar tone to the one passed by the city.
The city’s restrictions go farther, eliminating the eight-person minimum and banning in-person dining altogether. Miami Beach’s rules also require non-essential businesses, like shopping centers, to close at 10 p.m. every night. All surface parking lots and parking garages in the city are closed to non-residents.
And as of Wednesday’s vote, the city’s measures will last longer. The county’s emergency order will last seven days, unless it is extended.
Like the county, the city allows residential gyms to remain open, but private owners can shut them down on their own. Both Miami Beach and Miami-Dade also exempt businesses like pharmacies, grocery stores and gas stations, meaning residents and visitors still have access to crucial services.
“The reason why the county mayor and the governor have been looking at what our team is doing is because they recognize to a certain extent that we are the tip of the hospitality spear of this state, which also means we are the tip of the challenges of this virus as well,” Mayor Dan Gelber. “The challenges of creating social distancing in a community that was built literally to not have social distance is very hard, but we’re doing our best.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 11:47 AM.
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