Miami Beach's Breakup With Spring Breakers May Fare Poorly for the City

Efforts to revamp the tourist hot spot ignore the reality for local business owners.

It's that time of the year: Spring break has arrived for millions of college students, many of whom have once again flocked to sunny South Florida for a few days without classes. Miami Beach, however, has not exactly been thrilled.

Strict curfews, DUI and security checkpoints, and a general upswing in police enforcement were among the measures the city announced to hamstring potential ruckus. Additionally, officials implemented severe parking garage restrictions and fees—only for nonresidents—to discourage an influx of visitors.

In fact, the City of Miami Beach released a video declaring an outright breakup with partying vacationers. Referring to past lawless incidents involving out-of-towners, the video claims residents simply want to relax on the beach and check out new restaurants, while the visitors "just want to get drunk in public and ignore laws."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a statewide, rigorous crackdown on famous spots extending to Daytona Beach and Panama City Beach, purportedly in order to keep residents and visitors safe. 

"Florida does not tolerate lawlessness and chaos," DeSantis said in a press release earlier this month. "I am directing state law enforcement agencies to provide additional personnel and assets to local entities to ensure that they have the resources they need to keep the peace over spring break."

The Sunshine State has a long history of trying to quell spring breakers. It was, after all, Fort Lauderdale's crackdown on tourists in 1985 that pushed visitors farther south to Miami. 

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in similar restrictions nationwide. But in Miami Beach, officials have, in some ways, latched onto the idea, now preemptively implementing rules in an attempt to manipulate tourist behavior. The approach comes after the city experienced "fatal shootings and unruly crowds" in 2023, according to the Associated Press, ultimately prompting the government to issue a state of emergency.

While the crowds so far this year have dwindled comparatively, many of these restrictions—notably rules against drinking publicly—are clearly not being enforced consistently. What's more, the initiatives to reduce crime and prevent lawlessness have also come at the expense of the many small businesses that thrive off Miami Beach's status as a hot spot for tourism. 

Many sidewalk shops and cafes have resorted to shutting down during busy hours due to street closures. According to a report from NBC, sidewalk parking blockage has disincentivized customers from stopping by, radically decreasing revenue during an important business season.

As Reason's Alyssa Varas-Martinez wrote in 2022 after that year's state of emergency, most small businesses in Miami Beach rely substantially on tourists, many of whom will naturally search for alternatives across the water where curfews and restrictions don't apply. 

But placing blame solely on students and tourists for lawless behavior doesn't tell the full story. "Most of the people that come here and are arrested are actually residents of south Florida who aren't spring breakers but want to be near the party," said Michael Góngora, a former Miami Beach commissioner, "and unfortunately they're the ones that bring weapons and drugs and create havoc in the city."

Varas-Martinez's piece expresses a similar sentiment: "It's predictable that crime and disturbances will arise when thousands of vacationers, locals, and college students are crammed on a small island," she wrote, "and lots of big cities deal with similar problems without declaring local states of emergency."

Though not a state of emergency, the 2024 restrictions are, in some sense, the most intense measures taken yet. And yet, any attempt to refashion Miami Beach's image—away from the college party scene toward a more family-friendly atmosphere—disregards the basic reality that a large chunk of the city's economy comes from the very tourists it wants to repel. From 2022–23, visitors to the general Miami and Miami Beach area contributed $20.2 billion to the local economy. 

It remains to be seen if the government will succeed in rebranding Miami Beach. But if it does, it will come at the direct expense of local small business owners, who depend on this holiday season for their livelihoods.