Spring break crackdown puts focus on future of South Beach
MIAMI BEACH, FLA. » Miami Beach officials have spent recent years trying to control the raucous crowds, public drinking and growing violence associated with the city’s world-famous South Beach neighborhood during spring break.
Business owners claim they’re being unfairly targeted by regulations, and civil rights advocates say the city is trying to scare away Black tourists who make up many of the visitors.
Two shootings that wounded five people last weekend, prompting the city to impose an emergency midnight curfew this weekend, have refocused attention on the glamorous waterfront’s future — as an entertainment district or something else entirely. The city’s mayor, a Democrat, insists the crackdown is about bad behavior, not race.
The 10-block stretch of Ocean Drive known for art deco hotels, restaurants and bars lies between areas that cater to more affluent tourists, as well as locals. Many longtime residents have learned to treat spring break like a hurricane: Stay inside and hunker down until it’s over.
Resident Pedro Herrera, 40, said spring break is great for business at the hotel where he works, but he stays away from tourist areas when he’s off the clock.
“Before spring break, you can go walk on Ocean Drive,” Herrera said. “Right now, I prefer to stay home, because I know if I go there, something is going to happen.”
Mayor Dan Gelber said spring break and several holiday weekends throughout the year have been a problem for the city since before he took office in 2017. He sees the long-term solution as a fundamental change in the area around Ocean Drive from an entertainment district to a cultural district, replacing allnight bars and clubs with residential development and boutique offices.
“We don’t need an entertainment-only district,” Gelber said.
Developed in the 1920s and 1930s, Ocean Drive serves as the center of the Miami Art Deco District, including hundreds of buildings featuring the style’s signature bold geometry and intense colors. The area fell into disrepair but enjoyed a cultural and economic renaissance thanks to television shows like “Miami Vice” in the 1980s and fashion designer Gianni Versace moving into an oceanfront mansion in the 1990s. Bars and nightclubs flourished as South Beach became a destination for supermodels, musicians and other entertainers.
“Now, we have this business model of big drinks and large volumes all night long with tens of thousands of people,” Gelber said. “Which really just doesn’t work for our city.”
Gelber said he is still pursing a 2 a.m. South Beach alcohol ban, which was blocked by a circuit court judge earlier this month. Last call is 5 a.m. throughout most of Miami Beach, and South Beach businesses have been pushing back against the proposed rule that targets only their part of town.
The legendary Clevelander hotel and bar on Ocean Drive sued the city over the alcohol rollback last spring. Though not part of the lawsuit, Joshua Wallack, chief operating officer of nearby Mango’s Tropical Café, said the proposed rules give bars and clubs outside the target area an unfair advantage and threaten businesses inside the area with possible closure.
“They are pushing for a 2 a.m. ban but with exemptions,” Wallack said. “Do you really think they want to shut down the Fontainebleau?”