Tourist’s Ocean Drive murder reignites South Beach nightlife debate ahead of election
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber highlighted the murder of a Colorado tourist this week as he continued his push for a “reimagined” and pared down South Beach Entertainment District with more permanent housing and boutique office space — and less late night clubbing and debauchery.
In a video address to the city Thursday, Gelber called the current situation unsustainable and said he has asked the city manager and police chief to present a plan to combat crime that he says is plaguing one of the top tourist destinations in the world. The commission is expected to meet in an emergency session next week.
Gelber has spent the past year arguing the only way to stop the “hard partying crowds” and “chaos” that continue to place the Beach in an unflattering international spotlight is to change the makeup of the entertainment district. In his video address, the mayor said the “randomness” of the Tuesday afternoon shooting death of Dustin Wakefield, doesn’t change the fact that it happened in Miami Beach.
“I won’t pretend that all is just fine in South Beach. It attracts too many people, including many looking to fight or to buy drugs or to carry guns and all too often using them,” said Gelber, who is running for reelection in November. “We don’t need, nor can we sustain any longer an entertainment district. It puts police at risk and drains resources.”
Though Tuesday’s murder shared little in common with the spurts of violence and intemperance that have sparked a years-long debate over crowds and crime on Ocean Drive, the shocking shooting occurred just weeks before a Nov. 2 election that will also feature a proposal to limit late-night drinking. Incumbents reacted by calling for more policing and a special meeting, and challengers questioned the city’s ability to quell the disorder.
But the mayor’s decision to use the seemingly random murder of a tourist as a tool in his push to change the make-up of the highly-charged entertainment district was quickly pounced on by some residents and business leaders who called it “callous” and an “illusion.”
“For him to come out and say this is why we need to stop the party atmosphere, when the guy was shot in broad daylight by a sick individual, is callous,” said resident and attorney Stephen Hunter Johnson. “Intellectually, we need to understand that more police are not going to stop this crime... But why let a crisis go to waste?”
Wakefield, 21, was killed Tuesday afternoon as he sat down to dinner with his wife and infant child outside the La Cerveceria restaurant in the 1400 block of Ocean Drive. According to police, a man named Tamarius Davis, a UPS driver also on vacation from Georgia, said he was high on mushrooms when he approached Wakefield’s family and pointed a gun at the baby. Wakefield stood between the baby and Davis before the gunman fired several times. Wakefield died. Davis was jailed and charged with the crime.
The shocking incident in broad daylight only added to the unflattering spotlight that has engulfed South Beach the past few years as crowds — particularly over spring break and Memorial Day weekend — cause damage and tussle with police in incidents that have rocketed through social media.
Two weeks ago, a Miami-Dade grand jury indicted two North Carolina men — already jailed locally for the alleged rape of a Pennsylvania tourist — with the drug overdose deaths of Christine Englehardt, 24, and another man, Walter Riley IV from Chicago. The jury determined that the men sold the tourists who were visiting for spring break in March, deadly fentanyl that was being portrayed as the pain remedy Percocet.
“Nearly all the significant crime in this area is perpetrated by a visitor and upon a visitor,” Gelber said in his address. “If we are not willing to change and make tough decisions, no matter who it upsets, we should not expect change.”
Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements — who was preparing Friday for the weekend funeral of one of his officers — said any new police initiatives would be discussed at next week’s meeting.
An appeal to voters
Others joined the mayor’s call for a revamped entertainment district, particularly candidates vying for a seat in November’s city election who took to social media.
Former commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who is running in a crowded race to replace Micky Steinberg, used her campaign email account to express her dissatisfaction with the city’s handling of crime in Miami Beach.
“If every police officer enforced every single law on all of our streets across the City, there would be an immediate change in our current ‘anything goes’ culture,” she wrote.
Greg Branch, who is hoping to fill Michael Góngora’s commission seat, suggested a host of ideas to curb violence on South Beach that included opening Ocean Drive to vehicles, enforcing container laws, creating late night sobriety checks for drivers and getting additional police from neighboring cities.
“Some pieces of this plan will have to be hard-fought ... inconvenient or expensive,” Branch wrote in a Facebook group of Miami Beach residents. “But we will not get our peace of mind back for free — there is no magic wand.”
Góngora, whose term ends in November, told Telemundo’s Leticia Hernandez Wednesday that Ocean Drive is his “number one priority” and that the city must increase police presence and relay the message that Miami Beach is a city of “zero tolerance on crime.” He has opened a campaign account to campaign to keep his seat, but a judge ruled Wednesday that he is ineligible to make the ballot due to term limits.
Hoping to curb the hard-partiers attracted to South Beach, commissioners passed a 2 a.m. last call ordinance earlier this year. But a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge sided with a lawsuit filed against the ordinance from the owners of the Clevelander Hotel and deemed it unlawful.
In November, voters in Miami Beach will be asked if they would support changing last call hours at Miami Beach bars and restaurants from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m., though the straw poll is non-binding and would only apply to specific locations, with exceptions to be determined by the city commission.
Locals say entertainment is not the problem.
Activists and business leaders in the community, however, don’t necessarily agree that putting more Miami Beach police on the street will fix the problem.
Johnson, who also chairs Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Board, pointed out that less than a month ago, several Miami Beach police officers were charged with using excessive force on a man in handcuffs and for beating up a bystander who recorded the incident on his cellphone.
He said city leaders are too quick to use any type of criminal activity as an excuse for reshaping parts of the city. And, he said, the murder of Wakefield was a random event, it didn’t happen during a street party or fight.
Miami Beach’s approach, he said, has been “to harass the problem away” and use criminal activity as a reason to reshape parts of the city.
“They would like to redevelop South Beach,” Johnson said. “But rather than call for good ideas and solid solutions, they want to create a circumstance where they are fixing a problem.”
Mike Palma, the former chair of the Ocean Drive Association, which represents businesses on the strip, agreed that Gelber is using the event as an instrument to drive his vision of a new Ocean Drive. Palma is also the former general manager for The Clevelander.
“It’s just an illusion,” said Palma, who now works as a consultant for nightlife and entertainment groups. “What does entertainment have to do with a gentlemen who is carrying a gun in broad daylight and killing random people?”
He said the entertainment district is too often used as a scapegoat when crimes like the most recent one occur.
“The end-all, be-all is somebody died,” he said. “It should not be politicized, period.”
South Beach residents who live in or near the entertainment district say after all they’ve seen, they are saddened by the recent shooting but not surprised by the reaction.
Irene Bigger, who lives steps from La Cerveceria, where Wakefield was shot, said Gelber’s response is “a lot of the same,” and that ramping up police presence is just one small piece of the solution to keep the Beach safe. Bigger considers herself a neighborhood activist, and has met with city officials about other solutions, like limiting the amount of liquor stores in the entertainment district.
She agrees with the mayor that other initiatives are needed to help cure what ails South Beach.
“It is not just a policing issue. It is a planning and zoning issue and who we allow to run a business in our city,” said Bigger, 51. “It’s having a code of decency and having every business and tourist honor that.”
Wayne Roberts, 60, said he believes Gelber’s response “furthers his narrative” around rezoning parts of South Beach instead of speaking to the event Roberts called “horrific.”
“He’s turning this chaos and using it to enable him to make zoning changes to Ocean Drive,” said Roberts, who lives in the South of Fifth community, adjacent to the entertainment district. “This problem wasn’t built in a day, and it won’t be solved in a day. The only way this is going to get fixed is to make decisions based on the interest of the residents rather than developers and special interests.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 4:56 PM.