Miami Beach authorities have announced that alcohol sales will be banned in curfew areas after 6 p.m. starting Thursday.
On Wednesday morning, city leaders announced the new rule that will be implemented in the area by Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
The news channel 7News Miami explained that officials ordered that “the sale or distribution of any alcoholic beverages for consumption outside the premises, with or without payment or consideration for it, will be prohibited in the curfew area after 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 24, 2022, after 6 p.m. on Friday March 25, 2022; and after 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 26, 2022″.
This new announcement came after authorities called for a curfew in the entertainment district after several violent outbreaks during spring break.
City Council members voted in favor of that measure Tuesday afternoon, after two shootings left five injured in that southeastern US city in recent days.
“Five people who were shot could easily have been five people killed,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said during a meeting just before approving that initiative.
The curfew, which encompasses the busiest area of Miami Beach, including the famous Ocean Drive promenade, will be applied between midnight and 06h00, from Thursday to Monday morning.
The City Council had already anticipated the measure on Monday. “We can't take it anymore,” the mayor had said to justify that decision. “We didn't ask for the 'Spring Break'. We don't promote it. We don't encourage it. We just put up with it and, frankly, it's not something we want to endure.”
In 2021, Miami Beach imposed the same measure and banned the sale of alcohol in bars after 2 AM, following incidents in which police had arrested more than 1,000 people for street fights and riots.
To prevent the same from happening this year, the Police increased the number of troops deployed in the most visited areas of the city, which are concentrated in its southernmost neighborhood, South Beach.
Since the “Spring Break” began, officers seized 37 firearms in three days, local police chief Richard Clements said Monday.
Every year, in spring, a crowd of young people, especially students, come to Florida for a few days of continuous and uncontrolled fun.
These parties, with high alcohol consumption, are part of the collective imagination of generations of students but, in recent years, the local population seems increasingly disturbed by the phenomenon, despite the contribution it makes to the local economy.
“We cannot put public safety and income on the same level,” Gelber said after acknowledging that his measures will harm bars and restaurants in the area. “We can't worry that someone is going to have a bad weekend from a financial point of view, when people are being shot.”
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