Spring break curfew, road closures return to South Beach. Some residents staying home
As emergency spring break restrictions return to South Beach on Thursday, some residents are ready to hunker down in anticipation of another rowdy party weekend.
The 8 p.m. curfew in South Beach’s entertainment district and the 10 p.m. closures of the MacArthur and Venetian causeways will go back into effect Thursday night and expire Monday morning. The city plans to extend the orders each weekend until the end of spring break on April 12.
Both the party crowds, which have broken out into violence and vandalism this month, and the new restrictions will keep some residents home this weekend. Some refuse to leave Miami Beach after dark for fear of sitting in traffic for hours when they try to return home. Others who live near the South Beach party hub don’t want to be away from their homes when the curfew takes effect, sending crowds of jilted partiers into the residential Flamingo Park neighborhood.
“We are literally trapped,” said Cara Natkin, 57, a Flamingo Park resident. “There are no rules. All the rules have gone out the window.”
Miami Beach City Hall issued a state of emergency in the entertainment district on Saturday after city officials said large crowds of spring breakers had overwhelmed police, jeopardized public safety and threatened to spread COVID-19.
The initial rollout of the emergency orders Saturday night, just hours after they were announced, caused hours-long traffic backlogs at the primary entrances to the city and led big crowds to briefly occupy the Flamingo Park neighborhood, dancing on cars and climbing onto private balconies as residents fumed in their homes.
Natkin, a teacher at South Pointe Elementary School, said she was stuck in traffic for nearly three hours over the weekend trying to get home from Coconut Grove. Already fully vaccinated, she had hoped to sneak out this weekend to see musician Nil Lara at Bar Nancy in Little Havana, but she said she won’t risk sitting in traffic again.
“I can get off the Beach no problem, I just can’t get on the Beach,” she said.
Police modified the traffic plan ahead of this weekend, opting to reopen the Julia Tuttle Causeway to eastbound traffic and pushing back the closures of the MacArthur and the Venetian causeways to 10 p.m. from 9 p.m. The Venetian will be open only to residents, delivery drivers and local employees. The MacArthur will be open to those groups and guests of hotels or short-term rentals.
To prevent crowd overflow into Flamingo Park, police will track crowd movements from the entertainment district and assign cops to try preventing spring breakers from walking through the neighborhood, said police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez. Goodwill ambassadors will also be out in the area to remind crowds of the curfew and help disperse them.
“We’re sorry for the disruption and the inconvenience,” Mayor Dan Gelber said Wednesday. “We are hoping this passes very soon, and we’re sending the message out that this isn’t the place to party hard right now.”
Some Flamingo Park residents said the city should block non-residents from the neighborhood the way police have done for the South of Fifth neighborhood. Since mid-February, the city has posted police and private security at entrances to the upscale community.
“That’s something that I think the city needs to do something about because they are clearly taking care of the people with money,” Natkin said. “Where’s our protection?”
Dave Richardson, a 61-year-old Flamingo Park resident, said he confronted a group of spring breakers who broke into his building’s parking lot Sunday night to drink alcohol while seated on the hood of his car. As the curfew returns, he suspects the crowds will, too.
“There’s nowhere else for them to go,” said Richardson, who is not related to Miami Beach Commissioner David Richardson.
Ahead of this weekend, his condo board sent an email to residents urging them to close parking gates and not let anyone inside the building. Richardson, who heard more police will patrol the area this weekend, said the city should afford Flamingo Park residents the same protection that the South of Fifth neighborhood gets.
“We don’t really know what to expect, but we’re going to be watching and we’ll be ready,” Richardson said.
Richardson says he so rarely leaves home after dark nowadays that he almost looks back fondly on when the city was locked down last year over COVID fears. After eight years on the Beach, he said he’s used to seeing tourists leave empty beer bottles and trash in the street or race by his home in a loud rental sports car.
This spring break has felt different, Gelber said, adding that the crowds have felt “bigger and more violent” than in years past, he said.
City leaders have attributed the larger scale of this spring break to a number of factors: loose COVID restrictions in Florida, cheap airfares and pent-up demand one year into the pandemic.
He said the overflow that Flamingo Park experienced Sunday night was limited to a small area but understandably shocked residents there.
“It’s not like all of Flamingo Park was filled with a crowd. It was a pretty small area, but it’s jolting,” Gelber said. “We’re going to continue to protect our residential communities.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 9:15 PM.
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