Miami Beach suspends sidewalk café permits for 10 restaurants
In the three months since Miami Beach began cracking down on pushy employees at sidewalk cafés popular along Ocean Drive, the city has temporarily suspended the sidewalk café permits for 10 restaurants and issued $23,000 in fines for verbally soliciting customers on public rights of way.
Since October, the city has issued 39 notices of violation to restaurants violating the anti-hawking provisions of the recently passed Sidewalk Café Code of Conduct.
Ten restaurants were hit with 24-hour suspensions after twice violating anti
hawking rules, including three restaurants on Ocean Drive this month.
The Carlyle Cafe, Caffe Milano and Casa Grande Beach House received second violations in the first week of the year and will be forced to cease business on the sidewalk for 24 hours beginning at 8 a.m. Thursday. The businesses can appeal the decisions.
A Code Compliance officer reported that the staff at the three Ocean Drive restaurants failed to comply with rules stipulating what hosts or hostesses may say to pedestrians. Staff are not permitted to discuss the restaurant’s service in any way with a prospective patron unless that person clearly requests it.
The sidewalk café rules were passed by the City Commission in September and began to be enforced in October. Originally, it applied only to sidewalk cafés on Ocean Drive but expanded to include those on Lincoln Road and Española Way.
Stefano Frittella, who operates Caffe Milano and Casa Grande Beach House, declined to comment to the Miami Herald other than to say his business partner would handle the city’s notices.
First violations cost
$500 and second violations within a year cost $750. After the second violation, the city manager can suspend business for 24 hours. Third violations, aside from a $1,000 fine, extend the suspension to an entire weekend. Fourth violations within a year would void the restaurant’s sidewalk cafe permit for the remainder of the permit year — and result in a $1,250 fine.
Commissioner Mark Samuelian was an early supporter of the code of conduct proposal. He said the atmosphere along Ocean Drive, Lincoln Road and Española Way has improved since the new rules went into effect, but he wants to give City Manager Jimmy Morales more discretion in correcting the behavior of bad actors.
“I believe that we have made important progress in improving the conditions of the sidewalk cafés and their behavior,” Samuelian said. “That said, we have to remain vigilant.”
The code of conduct includes other areas of enforcement, such as pricing transparency in advertising and prohibiting restaurants from displaying menus in the public right of way.
Reporting by the Miami Herald in 2018 highlighted residents’ complaints about unscrupulous sidewalk cafes, some of which did not display prices on their menus, and sparked conversation in City Hall.
“Some operators can’t seem to get it through their thick skulls that it’s bad business strategy to run shady businesses. It’s not sustainable,” said Commissioner Ricky Arriola. “Since they can’t fix themselves, the city will do its part to remind them that enough is enough.”