Miami Beach commissioners divided on 2 a.m. alcohol cutoff but push proposals forward
A divided Miami Beach commission could not reach consensus Wednesday about how to impose new citywide alcohol restrictions that voters supported in a November referendum, but did get the ball rolling on proposed legislation.
Mayor Dan Gelber, who called the special meeting to discuss rolling back alcohol sales from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. citywide, directed city staff to draft ordinances that would either exempt a large swath of businesses from the proposed restrictions or exempt certain geographical areas of the city instead.
City Planning Director Tom Mooney presented commissioners with five exemptions to consider — including for enclosed hotels, bars and clubs, restaurants and businesses in certain parts of the city. All the options call for a hard 2 a.m. cutoff on the outdoor areas of late-night businesses.
The commission did not vote Wednesday, but Gelber said he would call another special meeting in the coming weeks to have a preliminary vote. Two votes would be required to pass the legislation. Gelber, who ran the meeting, heard differing opinions from his colleagues and kept a tally of who was in favor of what proposal.
“There’s going to have to be a level of compromise among us,” Gelber said at the meeting.
The sometimes convoluted discussion drew parallels to November’s open-ended referendum, which asked if voters would support changing the city’s last call to 2 a.m. citywide with “specific locations and related restrictions and exceptions to be determined by the City Commission.” The non-binding ballot question didn’t outline what those exceptions would be, leaving it up to the city commission to interpret the will of the voters.
Toward the end of the meeting, tensions flared when Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez — who called all the options flawed because, she said, exemptions are inherently unfair — accused Gelber of supporting an exception for businesses on Washington Avenue to help his “friends,” namely Goodtime Hotel owner David Grutman, who Rosen Gonzalez said supported Gelber’s reelection campaign.
“I don’t think either option is fair,” Rosen Gonzalez said at the meeting. “I think it should apply to everyone no matter what we do.”
Gelber later said in a TV interview that the accusation was absurd.
“We’re trying to come to some sort of civil answer to this and I don’t know if she was being helpful. She might have just been tired or got cranky or something,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I think we had a pretty serious discussion today and I think people have a sense that we need to do something serious and we need to roll it back.”
The first option commissioners pushed forward would exempt fully enclosed venues within large oceanfront hotels and fully enclosed restaurants, bars, dance halls, and entertainment establishments in certain zoning districts on Washington Avenue, 71st Street or in the Collins Park neighborhood.
The second, less restrictive option is similar to the first but would exempt hotels, restaurants, bars and other businesses citywide. Of the roughly 140 businesses citywide with a license to sell alcohol until 5 a.m., the first option would exempt just 43 of them while the second would exempt 132.
Gelber also directed staff to draw up a third option that would require any exempt business owners to comply with certain criteria in order to receive an extended-hours privilege.
“I did get a sense that there would be consensus for a 2 a.m. rollback but [with] some accommodations in limited commercial districts,” Gelber said after the meeting.
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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