When Mattia Prian of South Beach votes in his very first election in town this November, he’ll have crime on his mind. In particular, Prian said he will ponder how his car tires were slit twice in the past month and his windshield was smashed in a series of vandalism that also hit his neighbors.
Prian, who lives in the South Beach party district, said he believes the neighborhood crime has increased steadily since moving to his condo on Ocean Drive and 15th Street in 2019.
“It’s obviously getting worse,” he said, looking out the window at his car.
Crime is the theme of the city’s November 2nd election, where voters will decide whether to re-elect a dual-term mayor determined to break the city’s world-famous party scene, select two new commissioners, and vote on a non-binding election question who asks if bars should be forced to close three hours earlier at 2 a.m.
After a recalcitrant spring break and the murder of two tourists – including one at a sidewalk cafe on Ocean Drive – some candidates and incumbents are calling for stricter laws, enforcement and a nighttime police blanket in South Beach. The city is now pursuing a kind of “broken window” strategy to combat minor crimes that hit New York City in the early 1990s and led to a reduction in crime, but also to complaints about racial profiling.
But Prian is right and wrong when it comes to crime in Miami Beach. Between 2015 and 2019, a year before the COVID-19 shutdown disrupted tourism and trade on the million dollar sandbar, violent crime fell nearly 14.6% citywide, according to Miami Beach Police Department data reported to the FBI. Violent crime has continued to decline over the past year, dropping 33% compared to the city’s decade-long total in 2015.
People cross Collins Avenue after the curfew in Miami Beach, Florida on Saturday, March 27, 2021.
Recently, however, violent crime has been increasing in the city. Aside from the relatively low 2020 total violent crime numbers, which crime experts consider to be pandemic-related outliers, violent crime increased 13% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2019, according to police data published by the Miami Herald were made available.
During the same period this year, the South Beach Party Center saw violent crime increase by 35%. The district accounted for around 20% of all violent and property crimes in the city in 2019, and 32% of all arrests that year, according to police figures.
“I think our concerns are justified even if the actual crime rate has flattened or decreased in some categories,” Mayor Dan Gelber recently told the Miami Herald in an interview. “It doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t feel safe.”
Whether perception, reality, or somewhere in between, the chatter of election routes and political ads have sometimes sparked the steady stream of social media videos highlighting clashes between crowds and cops and the disturbing crimes that have made headlines throughout the year. Some candidates have said that not only the frequency of crime but also the type of crime – fights, shootings, drivers making donuts – alarms residents.
“The statistics don’t do justice to the clutter they create,” said Gelber.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber SAM NAVARRO Special for the Miami Herald
Voters have received leaflets showing the city skyline in the crosshairs of a gun, dramatizing a fictional 911 call in which the home burglar victim is left on their own due to increased demand for South Beach officials. The candidates behind the ads, the now disqualified Fabian Basabe and the hopeful Group 3 Commission Melissa Beattie, also suggested using drones to monitor the entertainment district and conduct random traffic checks.
Gelber, who supports alcohol withdrawals at 2 a.m., initially proposed the restrictions on the South Beach entertainment district only and got the city board to approve them. A judge on the Miami-Dade Circuit knocked it down because of an incorrect voting process.
Not all candidates support the 2am vote, which has certain exceptions that the Commission could iron out. Some, like Group 3 candidate Stephen Cohen, argue that reducing alcohol sales will not stem “the recent surge in crime across Miami Beach.” Instead, he proposed increasing the number of police officers working in the city and reallocating more officers and civilian personnel to the entertainment district.
“I want residents to be able to leave their homes and feel safe,” Cohen told the Herald’s editorial board in a recent candidate interview.
Raquel Pacheco, a Group 1 candidate, said the conflicting crime data could be used for “political gain” but it is the job of the commission to keep residents safe regardless of crime trends.
“Statistically, the numbers are not correct. Crime has not increased in the whole city. It went down sometimes. However, the perception is that we are in a dangerous place. And people don’t feel safe, ”she told the editorial team. “We have to deal with that. And for me it’s mainly in the entertainment district. “
Yellow’s proposal has been pushed back by Ocean Drive companies and a political committee, Citizens for a Safe Miami Beach, which, after an earlier iteration that was resolved after the 2017 referendum defeat, made a final call at 2 a.m. on Ocean Drive say goodbye, was reissued.
People stand on top of a car and fill the streets of a residential neighborhood in South Beach during the spring break in Miami Beach, Florida on Sunday, March 21, 2021. Daniel A. Varela [email protected]
“A late night alcohol ban is not a real solution to reducing crime,” said a recent leaflet from the committee. “We all want safer streets with more police and less crime.”
The committee was re-launched by Ceci Velasco, executive director of the Ocean Drive Association, who last week transferred her title of chair to a Tallahassee-based attorney.
David Wallack, the owner of Mango’s Tropical Cafe, has also opposed an earlier recent appeal. In a September 23 letter to Gelber and the rest of the commission, Wallack spoke of a “social media phenomenon among African-American young people” – along with what he described as urban policy failure and other factors such as COVID-19 and short-term rentals the apparent collapse of Ocean Drive “into crime and chaotic street party chaos”.
Wallack said the city should urge its officials to enforce existing laws rather than blaming the night shifts.
“It is both illogical and inconceivable to hold these few companies responsible for all of the big problems in Ocean Drive and all of South Beach that are fueled by social media,” he said.
Alex Piquero, criminologist at the University of Miami and chair of the department of sociology, said the rise in violent crime in the South Beach entertainment district is a “cause for concern” and clearly shows that Miami Beach’s crime problem is limited to the nightlife capital be Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue, and Washington Avenue between Fifth and 15th Streets.
Piquero said reducing alcohol sales is one approach that could help, along with changing the city’s branding.
People stand on top of a car during the spring break while a speaker plays music an hour after the Miami Beach curfew on Sunday, March 21, 2021. When the police closed Ocean Drive, crowds of people moved west towards Alton Road before some arrests made the crowd. Daniel A. Varela AP
But, he said, exploiting local residents’ fears with sensationalist campaign ads or suggesting a crude police strategy would not solve the problem and could target minorities.
“That’s a way of getting votes, but it’s not a constructive political response,” he said. “It will do more harm than good.”
Daniel Hertzberg, a Mid Beach resident, said he noticed friends and neighbors who were previously unattended with local politics are getting more involved after seeing nationwide coverage of the noisy spring break in South Beach in March . He said he will support the 2am referendum and hopes that anyone who wins the election will focus on improving the crime problem so that locals will be comfortable when they return to South Beach’s entertainment district.
He said crime rates may not be as high as other parts of the country, but it is “shocking” to Beach residents that violent crimes are expected to become more common. He said he hoped recent government actions, such as reassigning 40 police officers to South Beach and keeping Miami Dade officers for the remainder of the year, could lead to more permanent solutions.
“I think it’s by far the number one problem,” he said.
Miami Police Commissioner Richard Clements said what justifies the increase in the resources now devoted to enforcing laws and regulations in South Beach is the type of crimes that are being committed in the district and how they are affecting tourism and upset the locals.
“Random acts always make people nervous,” said Clements, referring to the terrifying daytime footage of Dustin Wakefield eating an early dinner at an Ocean Drive diner and protecting his toddler when he was killed. “We are a tourist location. Tourists have to feel safe and we want to reassure the residents. “
Clements went on to say that perception is a large part of the increased police presence. High-profile crimes like Wakefield’s death and the rape and overdose death of 24-year-old Pennsylvania tourist Christine Englehardt during the spring break at an Ocean Drive hotel are more common in the entertainment district.
This story was originally published September 28, 2021 12:53 p.m.
Martin Vassolo reports on the politics and government of Miami Beach for the Miami Herald. He started working for the Herald in January 2018 after attending the University of Florida where he served as Editor-in-Chief of The Independent Florida Alligator. Before that, he worked as a general contract reporter at the Herald metro counter and as an intern in political reporting.
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