Miami Beach merchants say spring break crackdown on rowdy revelers helped prevent chaos
They put Miami Vice on ice.
Miami Beach merchants told The Post Monday a strict crackdown on spring break chaos was largely successful in curbing disorder in the city.
Local business owners said the glitzy town saw mostly calm streets over the past two weekends — and the cautious but steady return of stroller-pushing moms.
Veteran Miami Beach restaurateur Sebastian Labno acknowledged that parking restrictions led to a wave of cancellations during the break’s first weekend — and that he even considered closing up shop due to a lack of business.
But like many other local proprietors, Labno said he was willing to suffer a short-term loss for Miami Beach’s longterm commercial viability.
“Once people saw that it was calm and that things were okay, they started coming back,” he said. “Last weekend business was good. You started seeing families on the streets again. It was totally different.”
Last year, Labno said he saw tourists being assaulted in broad daylight, impromptu three-card monte tables, and brazen drug dealing in front of his eatery. Police also arrested almost 500 people, 105 guns were seized and there were two fatal shootings.
But a heavy police presence and a lockdown on car traffic and local parking, he said, were effective in 2024.
“I’m hoping they got the message,” Labno said of troublemakers who kept their distance.
Several merchants stressed the vast majority of lawbreakers were not college students enjoying their recess, but older partiers bent on mischief.
Others asserted that the measures were too draconian — and that the limitations on parking brought commerce to a crawl.
“I get that they had to do something,” another restaurant owner said, noting that he closed for several days because of a lack of reservations. “But they have to take another look at parking. There’s a middle ground, we just have to find it. Because some businesses can handle it, others can’t.”
That latter group included local nightclub owners who saw business kneecapped due to the crackdown. A trio of venue operators filed an emergency lawsuit last week seeking to stave off a curfew that limited their hours.
A judge nixed the bid, asserting that the measures were necessary in light of last year’s violent upheaval. With revelers staying away, several large clubs were forced to cancel major events as a result.
A local liquor store owners told The Post his business was down by at least half. “I think we’re being unfairly targeted,” he said. “We’re not the problem, it’s the people coming in and causing issues that are the problem.”
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner said his city’s spring break divorce was a triumph — and that business owners who previously saw segments of their clientele vanish were grateful.
“This is the calmest spring break we’ve had in years,” he told Fox Business. “A number of restaurants that make their business, like traditional restaurants, are actually telling me thank you, that these measures have helped them, [that] it’s kept things safer, calmer and that they’re actually busier.”
Meiner said the city risked becoming equated with lawlessness, a reputation that would exact year round damage to local tourism.
While Miami Beach’s famed streets and avenues were far quieter this year, there were disturbances throughout the spring break stretch.
Police reported more than 250 arrests from March 1 to March 16, according to Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson Christopher Bess.
The Magic City implemented an array of new security measures, from random bag checks and DUI checkpoints to higher towing fees and early closures for liquor stores.
Many stymied spring breakers rerouted to Fort Lauderdale in light of the clampdown, with officials there reporting roughly a dozen arrests thus far.
