MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - The party-all-night plan for spring break 2022 in South Beach is not going to happen. At least, not this weekend.
It was an easy night on Ocean Drive. Big crowds don’t typically come until Friday, but on Thursday night, the new curfew began.
“Twelve o’clock curfew,” said a spring breaker.
Last year’s 8 p.m. curfew sent thousands of pent up spring breakers into residential neighborhoods in the middle of a pandemic. This year, many will find it drier on the beach.
New rules state that no alcohol is to be sold in stores after 6 p.m. That rule went into effect Thursday night, and it will be the same story Friday and Saturday night.
“It’s an inconvenience, but I do understand where they’re coming from,” said another spring breaker.
The closing of liquor stores two hours early for three nights, plus an 11:59 p.m. curfew for four nights, was spawned by last weekend’s violence.
It came with five people shot, stampedes, innocent victims hospitalized and nine officers hurt.
“Bodies is getting dropped, and they got to do something to change it,” said another spring breaker.
The fallout comes with store sales stopping early within the curfew zone, which will take over the area of 23rd Street and Dade Boulevard to the north to Government Cut to the south.
“I mean, definitely, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of dollars,” said Wilson Arevalo from Gulf Liquors.
That’s how much the folks at Gulf Liquors are expecting to lose each night, as they’re forced to close six hours early.
“It’s affecting a lot of stores. It’s sad and very bad, you know what I mean, because it’s affecting a lot of families as well,” said Arevalo.
The temporary rules are part of a declaration of a state of emergency in Miami Beach after what happened last weekend.
“It ain’t gonna change much, ’cause nobody going to listen to the curfew, and nobody is going to not be able to drink after six just ’cause the liquor store ain’t open,” said another spring breaker.
Officers were in the area to steer everybody either to their hotels or their homes.
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