‘Like I’m in The Twilight Zone’: Debate rages over music in Miami Beach restaurants
Cafe in Sunset Harbour.
Restaurateurs like Siegmann and Cea say the restrictions make it difficult to compete with businesses in other areas of MiamiDade County that aren’t subject to the same rules.
“South Beach is no longer the only entertainment option in town as it was perhaps in the early 2000s,” Siegmann said. “Now, of course, with the development of Wynwood and Midtown and Brickell and others, all food and beverage operators need to compete on a much more aggressive and broader scale than we ever had to.”
Beach Commissioner John Elizabeth Alemán recently proposed changing the city’s legal definition of “entertainment establishment” to allow businesses to have ambient entertainment — low enough that it won’t interfere with a normal conversation — without applying for a permit.
But the proposal was met with fierce opposition from many South Beach residents, who worry that restaurants would take advantage of the looser reSeveral strictions to host loud entertainment that disturbs the neighbors. Residents in two neighborhoods in particular — South of Fifth and Sunset Harbour — say they have worked hard to keep these areas free of the party atmosphere seen in other parts of South Beach.
“This would be a disastrous reversal of direction if applied to South of Fifth, which thrives under the zoning prohibition on entertainment within its borders,” local activist Frank Del Vecchio said in an email. “Prohibiting entertainment has been the single most effective instrument in this success. The result is a true community, for the most part free of the disruption, congestion and need for extensive policing that plagues the Entertainment District.”
Alemán has scrapped her initial idea and is now proposing a one-year pilot program that would allow restaurants to apply for ambient entertainment permits, which would likely cost less than $100 to obtain. The music would have to be indoors and wouldn’t be allowed before 10 a.m. or after midnight.
Under the current system, businesses with entertainment permits can appeal code citations to a special master, which makes it harder for the city to stop bad behavior. But the ambient entertainment permits would be given at the discretion of the city manager, Alemán said, which would make it easier for the city to revoke them.
“If all the sudden the Rolling Stones start playing in there, well, we’ll take the permit away,” Alemán said. “But if they wanted to have one of the New World Symphony fellows come and play for brunch, they could do that.”
The pilot program would likely be limited to specific areas of the city and the number of permits would be capped, Alemán said. She has promised to exclude South of Fifth and Sunset Harbour from the pilot program because of resident opposition.
At a town hall meeting at the Normandy Shores Golf Course on Tuesday evening, Alemán pitched the idea to residents while a musician visiting for the Miami Classical Music Festival played viola in the background.
South of Fifth resident Steve Jacobson said he was concerned about the city’s ability to enforce the proposed rules because code enforcement officers aren’t equipped with decibel readers. His neighborhood has had problems with businesses violating existing noise ordinances, he said, and with drunk tourists spilling out of the entertainment district and into the neighborhood late at night.
“I think you need to set some objective noise level standards that are enforceable,” he said. “Ambient to you and ambient to me are two different things.”
North Beach resident Betsy Perez, who works in the music industry, said she thought the city’s current rules were ridiculous.
“I feel like I’m in The Twilight Zone,” she said. “I can’t believe that we live in a town where we cannot play music live at the same decibel as the music being played on the radio.”
The proposal will be vetted by the city’s land use and development committee at the end of the month and, if approved, will go to the full commission for a vote.