In an increasingly aggressive push for a quiet spring break, Miami Beach announced a three-day curfew starting Friday, citing the expected large crowds during the peak weekend of the season.
The curfew will remain in effect from midnight to 6 a.m. every night through Monday, City Manager Alina T. Hudak announced Friday morning. The measure only applies to South Beach, the part of the city most popular with tourists and revelers.
“We did not make this decision lightly, but it is not surprising,” Hudak said in the announcement. “We have been clear in our intent to protect the public from the dangerous unrest that has accompanied spring break crowds in recent years.”
The sale of alcoholic beverages for “off-premises consumption” (i.e., on the street) will also be prohibited after 6pm each day the curfew is in effect.
How to spend spring break has been a major question for Miami Beach leaders since the coronavirus pandemic began and raucous crowds began flocking to the beach every March. Some of the city’s tactics have led to accusations of over-policing and racism, as well as lawsuits over civil rights violations. This is the fourth year in a row that Miami Beach has instituted an emergency curfew for spring break.
Mayor Stephen Miner and several commissioners (elected on a law-and-order basis in November) last month debuted a digital advertising campaign that says the city is “saying goodbye to spring break.” They include using license plate readers, restricting beach access, closing public parking lots and banning popular Ocean Drive sidewalk cafes for last weekend and this weekend, which are traditionally the busiest of the season. , took a number of measures.
As a result, fewer people gathered on the streets of South Beach last weekend.
But St. Patrick’s Day is this weekend, another opportunity for parties, and the city says it’s already starting to see crowds. And city leaders have decided to act more aggressively than they have in the past two years, when a curfew was imposed only after the Ocean Drive shooting.
“This curfew was not instituted in response to any specific incident,” city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier said in a statement. “We have clearly and consistently communicated in our marketing materials and direct communications that a stay-at-home order is likely during spring break.”
Even before Friday’s curfew was announced, some business owners they said they were sufferingsales are down due to fewer audiences.
In October, the city sent a letter to businesses with a commissioner-approved bill that would allow the city manager to declare a state of emergency during the spring break period and impose temporary measures, such as curfews, if necessary. Ta. Last April, the city announced a 2024 curfew almost a year early, but commissioners later backed away from that idea, choosing instead to authorize a curfew if necessary.
Some residents welcome the crackdown on boozing.
“If it gets so noisy that no one can enjoy it, that’s a problem,” said Marilyn Freundlich, who lives in the Sunset Harbor neighborhood of South Beach.
But business owners were less than enthusiastic about the curfew, with three nightclubs filing complaints over the restrictions. Still, a judge upheld the curfew in a ruling Saturday.
Jared Galbutt, co-founder and CEO of Bodega, a taqueria in South Beach, said: I have written Friday’s X said the city could have announced this weekend’s curfew sooner.
He wrote that companies announcing the decision Friday after setting schedules and planning entertainment “demonstrates a lack of thoughtfulness in making decisions.” “Last weekend we had the right medicine, we had a strong police force, businesses were open and we had no problems.”
alain draquelier Contributed to research.