Miami Beach lifts 8 p.m. alcohol sales ban, which hurt stores
When the governor rescinded COVID-era business restrictions statewide last month, Rick Silverberg printed out the executive order and posted it at the front of his South Beach liquor store.
It had been about three months since the city of Miami Beach started enforcing an 8 p.m. cutoff for alcohol sales at supermarkets and liquor stores, and Silverberg estimates he was losing at least $15,000 a week.
That night, Silverberg tried opening late but barely reached 9 p.m. when Code Compliance — backed up by police — threatened to arrest his staff if they did not close, he said.
“I don’t think they could care less about me,” said Silverberg, who opened the Portofino Wine Bank in 2003. “I am adamant they don’t care about the small businessman.”
Over the weekend, the city quietly stopped enforcing the order, allowing Silverberg and most other operators to serve alcohol until the midnight COVID curfew. The order will officially end Thursday, after Miami Beach revised its emergency orders Wednesday afternoon.
The emergency measure, which prohibited the sale of beer, wine and liquor after 8 p.m. at stores citywide, has been panned by liquor store owners hurting economically and inconvenienced residents who learned to time their supermarket trips to meet the early last call for alcohol.
“They keep changing the position, but it doesn’t have anything to do with science and it doesn’t have to do with COVID,” Silverberg said. “Even this weekend, we were not allowed to open past 8 p.m. to retail alcohol, yet everywhere is crowded and busy and packed.”
City Manager Jimmy Morales, who authorized the July 2 order, said at the time he wanted to prevent people from “buying bottles, and then bringing them back” to presumably drink in public.
The order remained in effect more than three weeks after the city let bars open back up following an executive order from Gov.
Ron DeSantis moving Florida to the third and final reopening phase.
“It is no longer in effect,” a city spokeswoman told the Miami Herald on Tuesday.
The city stopped enforcing the order Saturday after a circuit court judge ruled Miami-Dade County’s midnight curfew conflicted with state restrictions on local coronavirus rules. The ruling briefly lifted the curfew countywide — the cities of Miami Beach and Miami said Saturday they would not enforce it — but Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal reinstated the curfew pending a final ruling in the case.
The curfew went back into effect Tuesday, but Miami Beach’s 8 p.m. alcohol order did not. Without a formal revision to the order Tuesday, confusion abounded as some operators, like Silverberg, sold alcohol past 8 p.m. while others stuck with the written rule.
At the Publix on Collins Avenue and 68th Street, employees enforced the 8 p.m. rule while a police officer stationed outside said he believed it had been canceled.
Minutes before 8 p.m., Dave Berard, 34, browsed the wine section — adorned by corporate signs informing shoppers of the ordinance — and questioned the purpose of the rule.
A boat captain and real estate broker, with a baby on the way, Berard said he has an unpredictable schedule. Timing his shopping runs before the 8 p.m. cutoff is not easy, and last week he was turned away trying to buy wine for after a late dinner.
“I understand the basis that they don’t want people intoxicated, acting like idiots and giving COVID to everyone,” said Berard, whose girlfriend lives in Miami Beach. “But you’re inconveniencing the people that are sacked away at home who work late.”
Silverberg kept the Portofino Wine Bank open until 10 p.m. Tuesday, his typical business hours, and received a blessing from
Code Compliance. They told him because his store is not in the city’s mixeduse entertainment district, which includes areas on Ocean Drive and Washington Avenue bound by 5th and 16th streets, he can operate as normal at 500 South Pointe Drive.
“It’s tough out there to do battle with the city,” he said.
Prior to the COVID-era rule, the city already had a law on the books limiting package alcohol sales at 8 p.m. in the entertainment district, which also includes Collins Avenue between 73rd and 75th streets. That order remains in effect, the city said.
Under current rules, restaurants outside the district are allowed to sell alcohol bottles until midnight, a privilege that has undercut liquor stores during the pandemic.
Adela Billa De Rey, the owner of Azul Spirits & Wines in Sunset Harbour, said she did not open her store late on Tuesday because she won’t risk being shut down. Like Silverberg, Billa De Rey estimates she has lost more than $10,000 due to the restriction.
“The communication has been so little,” she said of the city’s business outreach. “I don’t risk it until I get a paper telling me otherwise.”