After violence and overcrowding last year, Miami Beach is “breaking up” with spring break in a powerful new public service announcement, warning incoming tourists that visiting will not be pleasant.
Miami Beach Wants Spring Break Tourists To Stay Away
The City of Miami Beach, which is a separate entity from the City of Miami, posted the following video this week to its YouTube account, which has raised a lot of eyebrows:
After years of violence, including shootings, Miami Beach wants the “bad” partygoers to stay away.
To further urge tourists to stay away, it will add:
- curfews
- DUI checks
- bag searches
- early beach closures
- no-warning arrest for drug possession or violence
It will also add parking restrictions for non-residents and close sidewalk cafes on busy weekends.
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner said:
“The status quo and what we’ve seen in the last few years is just not acceptable, not tolerable.”
Sounds to me like a place to avoid…whether you intend to behave or not.
Just as I often say concerning Hawaii (where a vocal group of Hawaiian and Hawaiian residents also express displeasure with tourism), if the people don’t want you there, don’t go…my goodness. Of course, I don’t want low-life trash in my city either (which I think is different than the situation in Hawaii). I hardly blame the City of Miami Beach…who wants to see their city taken over by out-of-towners who are violent, messy, loud, and debauched?
Of course, not everyone is onboard. Some businesses fear that this will drive away business during its busiest time of the year. Some civil rights leaders say the move is targeted at keeping black people away. For example, Stephen Hunter Johnson, a member of Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Board, told Fortune:
“Everybody loves this idea that they are free from their government intruding on them. But amazingly, if the government intrudes on black people, everyone’s fine with it.”
I think the City of Miami Beach simply doesn’t want violence and crime…whoever commits it.
CONCLUSION
With a sun allergy and an evangelical upbringing, I have never experienced “spring break” at a popular beach…and frankly, I have no desire to. Frankly, it sounds horrible to me. I cannot blame the City of Miami Beach for saying enough is enough. But will this ad and the new measures actually dissuade the “wrong type” of tourists? Doubtful (local media reports they are already there), but we will have to see…
Where are you going for spring break?
Well, here we go!
Miami Beach has a problem for sure. The past couple of years, spring break has gotten out of hand. What makes for terrible optics at the very least is that the crowds coming to Miami Beach lately have been black. Miami Beach has already had a history of racism, like when they specifically declined to have MetroRail extended to their city because they didn’t want inner city visitors invading their pristine neighborhoods. Killing off spring break when it’s black kids enjoying themselves just isn’t a good look. If they want to discontinue being a spring break destination, they should gradually tighten things down over the course of a few years.
Miami beach always exemplifies the type of crazy I cannot understand or enjoy. But for the over the top spring break action, I thought that’s why we have the Yucatan peninsula.
You write: “I hardly blame the City of Miami…who wants to see their city taken over by out-of-towners who are violent, messy, loud, and debauched?”
I think you mean the City of Miami Beach. Different city, as you correctly point out elsewhere.
Makes you wonder how New Orleans manages the multiple times a year big crowds gather for all kinds of party events.
Not very well:
https://liveandletsfly.com/new-orleans-debauchery/
As a native, the NOPD has received its share of criticism. However, when it comes to crown control, the NOPD is very, very visible especially Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, and to a lesser extent, the French Quarter in the off season.
However, Florida Spring Break is a different animal. All the way up and down the coast are kids looking to lose their rational thought process for an entire week. Also, the extravagant venues on the beach entice misbehavior and are just as culpable. Each of these beach towns make a fortune from occupancy taxes, rental car fees, liquor licenses, and the such. Should the kids go else where, these towns will be demanding federal aid from Biden.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I wonder what Padre Island or Cancun is like this year??
Having been on Spring Break every year I was in college, I can assure you that an evangelical upbringing didn’t stop very many people from going.
I’m not condemning it, but it is not and was not for me…it never appealed to me.
It was fun when I was 20, but it certainly loses its appeal as you mature, and you know… Have miles and points to treat the world as your oyster!
100% this.
Good. Would be nice to have a place to go to without all the unruly brats.
The reality is 13% of the population causes 90% of the problems and most of the violent crime. Due to neighborhoods not being able to keep out problem groups on the basis of their characteristics, Miami has to resort to these onerous rules to keep trouble away. The blame falls on the very cops who enforced court orders over the last 60 years that deprive property and business owners from deciding who comes on their own property. Freedom doesn’t exist in America when property owners are banned by the government from keeping troublemakers out.
Miami doesn’t need spring break anymore. Not worth it.
13% of the population, eh? Interesting choice in numbers.
It’s called a Dog Whistle because the people who will hear the true racist intent are fellow believers while most people hear nothing. Nice catch.
I went to college in San Diego, lived and worked by the beach and stayed in town for spring break with my friends.
Problem solved.
I live in South Beach, and love living there most of the year. What I don’t love is the “spring break” gun violence, with murders, broken store windows, vandalism, theft and trash left everywhere. By all means come to enjoy the sun, the great restaurants, and shopping. Guns and violence you can leave at home. Ironically most of the perpetrators are locals and not college students on spring break. It is an excuse to come down to a place where it’s easy to commit crime due to the sheer numbers of partiers and the police being outnumbered.
If the best they have planned is this whiny video, I won’t be surprised if things don’t change a lot this year.
I love when South Florida, like many places in the world, build themselves as factories of tourism and then scream when they become those factories. Be careful what you wish for.
The problems are real. But the solutions are not. I watched my hometown (Fort Lauderdale, which started the entire Spring Break phenomena … watch the film ‘Where the Boys Are.’) get overrun by crazy crowds in the 1980s and then work to kill it in the 90s … when it moved to Texas and the Florida Panhandle … SoBeach has been a draw for probably a good 15-20 years now. It is out of control. But the vast majority of problems are due to local teens and 20-somethings who head to the beach looking for, or to create, trouble. All draconian campaigns like this one do is harm local businesses and get attention for idiot politicos like Governor Meatball.