South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
South Florida parties on
No mask, no distancing, no problem inside bars and clubs
By Arlene Borenstein-Zuluaga and Ben Crandell
Unmasked strangers grip each other in an intimate, devil-maycare dance inside the packed Hollywood nightclub Amsterdam.
In Delray Beach, at restaurant-turned-party Salt7, young patrons bounce bare-faced atop a banquette, a bucket of Dom Perignon chilling at their feet.
Inside Piazza Italia restaurant on Fort Lauderdale’s tony Las Olas Boulevard, the make-out scene prompts a local dentist to worry if any of those energetic mouths belong to one of his patients.
This week, Gov. Ron DeSantis was in West Palm Beach forcefully defending the state’s hospitality industry from restrictions being enacted in other states, saying “the vast, vast majority of infections are occurring in peoples’ homes.”
The governor’s comments stood in stark contrast to a report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force made public on Saturday that recommended swift action from Florida officials in the face of surging numbers of new
COVID-19 infections.
The report specifically asked for limits on indoor dining and bar capacity, and stricter enforcement of mask policies.
A few days before DeSantis made his comments, a fortnight before Christmas, astonishing scenes of irresponsibility were playing out in bars and clubs big and small across South Florida. A weekend tour found social distancing is nonexistent, capacity restrictions are ignored, mask rules are a joke.
Standing outside Amsterdam in Hollywood, one new South Florida resident said that’s why he moved here, calling it a “free-for-all.”
When hundreds of young people jammed reopening weekend at the Wharf in downtown Fort Lauderdale last month, the shocking scene of so many unmasked patrons massed together prompted the venue’s owner to quickly close the outdoor venue.
But what of the threat posed by numerous late-night gatherings, smaller but similar, taking place inside confined spaces across South Florida?
On Saturday, Dec. 12, when the White House Coronavirus Task Force report on Florida was released, it included a sentence in bold-faced type: “Begin warning about any gathering during December holidays.” That night, South Florida partied like there’s no tomorrow.
Amsterdam Restaurant and Bar, Hollywood
Inside Amsterdam, cocktail waitresses in skin-baring uniforms, some masked, most not, worked a crowd of 75 or so people on Thursday night in a scene that could have been the backdrop for a sexy music video.
In the VIP area, a line of waitresses were illuminated by sparkler-topped bottles, while others danced and twerked. Behind the bar, one staffer puffed on a hookah (a potential COVID spreader, says the National Institutes of Health), while another (maskless) danced with a customer (maskless) so close you could not have slipped a credit card between them.
This kind of activity has prompted eight complaints against the venue since June to Broward County Code Enforcement, which has issued one citation at Amsterdam for a social-distancing violation.
But not everyone is complaining. Outside Amsterdam, boxing trainer Alex Ruthless explained why he moved to South Florida from the Washington, D.C., area four weeks ago.
“The free-for-all. The lack of enforcement, the lack of rules. … Everybody turns the other way,” he says. “It’s the pros and cons, right? I do like it at times, and at the same time it is concerning.”
Crazy Uncle Mike’s, Boca Raton
Few South Florida bands perform with the reckless abandon of Spred the Dub — exactly what you want from a night of beers and live rock ‘n’ roll, an occasion that now seems like a treasured memory.
So a couple of hundred STD fans gathered inside Mike’s on Saturday and, because it also was a night of Florida Gators’ football, the restaurant-bar seemed prepared, with outdoor tables scattered under a large tent and spaced-out group seating inside.
But it was possible to walk in without being checked for a mask, the bar was two-deep in spots with the mostly maskless, and some bare-faced guests wandered by you seemingly without a thought.
The Palm Beach County code enforcement dashboard lists 15 COVID-related complaints about social distancing and mask compliance against Crazy Uncle Mike’s from July through December. No citations have been issued at the venue so far.
As Spred the Dub swung into a Doors set, with Girlfriend Material’s charismatic Bryan Smith out front as a guest vocalist, the room filled with the lyrics of “Roadhouse Blues.” It seemed like just as one side of the room was singing “Let it rolllll, all night long!,” the other side was exhaling in unison as the TVs over the bar showed the Gators missing a season-defining field goal.
Piazza Italia, Fort Lauderdale
The energetic Las Olas Boulevard restaurant Piazza Italia had gotten its nightclub on by 10:30 p.m. Friday, with unmasked groups dancing inside and outside the venue to Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” while at best six inches apart.
Ordering a drink at the bar meant a tight squeeze through the crowd, which stood shoulder to shoulder, a majority unmasked (staff included). Conversations over the music took place so closely that one guest could probably smell the other’s breath.
None of this is new to Piazza Italia, which has had 13 complaints lodged since June with Broward County Code Enforcement, including two on Saturday, Dec. 12. Most cited issues with masks, social distancing and capacity restrictions. The complaints have resulted in seven citations for the business, including a $15,000 fine that owner Frank Talerico is disputing. Attempts to reach Talerico were unsuccessful.
One Friday-night patron at Piazza Italia, who would identify himself only as a local dentist, said he was surprised by what he witnessed.
“Everyone is dancing up on each other. They are making out. They can be my patient on Monday,” he said.
The 38-year-old admitted to feeling conflicted about socializing while trying to be responsible to his patients. He spent at least part of the evening inside the venue with his face uncovered.
“I’m stuck in the middle, where I want to live my life, being quarantined for 12 months. Well, it feels like 12 months. Being quarantined isn’t easy. I try to find a happy medium,” he said.
Capone’s Night Club, Fort Lauderdale
A thumping box of smoke and testosterone in the Himmarshee District, Capone’s is a relic of the clubs that once defined South Florida nightlife, with its 3-for-1 drinks and its “sexiest bartenders in South Florida,” only to be outdone by “the hottest shot girls on the planet.”
Late Thursday night (ladies night!), the main room is congested with maybe 100 people, the air heavy with humid, fog-machine vapor and the haze produced by patrons who covertly push the remnants from a cigarette or a vape pen from their lungs into the air. Breathing through a mask in this environment is a problem, but not a problem for Capone’s guests, virtually all mask-free.
It’s a dance club, but populated mostly by unavoidable clusters of men content to stand and talk. Few seem to even go through the pretense of drinking, an action that would allow them to go maskless under COVID rules. Every so often a couple of women break out in a brief bump-and-grind duet.
The DJ plays the Nelly hit “Ride Wit Me.” Everyone sings along: “Why do I live this way? Hey, must be the money!”
Two bare-faced men lean over the bar to engage the bartender, elevating the volume on their drink order in competition with the pounding music. After a brief exchange, the bartender lowers her mask to smile and complete an alarming transaction — three faces less than 18 inches from each other.
“I have a job. I have bills. That’s the business,” she says later.
Booze Garden, Fort Lauderdale
Booze Garden is a tiny, turfed indoor rumpus room whose welcoming light pours from a doorway along the FEC tracks in a gloomy Himmarshee District.
Inside a few dozen guests — most in their 20s, some twice that — line the small bar or stand in groups around the pop-a-shot basketball game, the Ms. Pacman console and Giant Jenga. The DJ keeps it upbeat: Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop,” Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It feels like the best
basement party in Fort Lauderdale.
But no one is wearing the mask they walked in with ($5 at the door, if you forgot), and while it’s not as packed as it often gets, keeping six feet from a stranger is a challenge while navigating this intimate space.
Especially when you’re the only one trying.
Jenga crashes down and a halfdozen players and a few onlookers erupt in a maskless, lung-emptying exhortation of shock, awe and random high-fives; Steve Perry leads some in the crowd in a chorus, imploring them to “hold on to that feeling.” It’s time to go.
The Office, Delray Beach
East of Swinton, downtown Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue is alive with Saturday-night fever. A stylish throng dozens strong lines up shoulder-to-shoulder, faces uncovered, on the crowded sidewalk outside restaurant-music venue Tin Roof and next-door dance club Honey.
Another line forms a couple of blocks away outside the Office, where they will sell you a mandatory mask at the door, but it might as well be used as a $3 drink coaster.
You won’t find many masks on faces inside the bumping gastropub.
Like at other Atlantic Avenue hot spots on a Saturday night, the young T-shirt-and-jeans crowd that fills the Office mingles in a way that is positively 2019. Numbering maybe 100 inside (with another two dozen stacked at the busy outdoor bar), they ebb and flow into each other through the narrow room, sometimes coalescing into stubborn knots near the bar, where guests stand two- or three-deep, a couple furtively vaping.
The Office has generated 10 complaints on the Palm Beach County code enforcement dashboard, all resolved without a citation being issued.
Just when you decide no one else is wearing a mask, you see Ricardo Garza, of Boynton Beach. Garza is drinking a cocktail, lowering his generic blue mask and replacing it with each sip. Who does that?
“My sister, she is in the medical field. And she has young kids. And here comes Christmas,” he said. “So I need to make sure I’m there.”