Miami Beach spring break a two-edge sword for business

As Miami Beach gears up for spring breakers next March, new and old businesses in the area continue to feel the effects of spring break year after year.

Naked Taco, a restaurant in the Tudor Hotel on Ocean Drive, opened its doors in 2014 and has lived through nine spring breaks on the well-known street. Staff has witnessed high-impact weekends and felt the repercussions that come hand-in-hand with working in a centralized location.

“They actually make it a high-impact weekend [during spring break],” said Efrain Barco, general manager of Naked Taco, “which for us is a hit-or-miss because it actually restricts people from coming in. The way it affects is because they block the streets, so they make it really difficult for any tourist that wants to come and enjoy themselves on Ocean Drive.”

“It only hits those specific areas from 23rd Street all the way down to Fifth Street,” Mr. Barco said. “We’re in the middle of it. We’re right on 11th Street. We’re a block away from the police station. And it’s even harder for my employees to come in to work in the mornings because they have to take only detailed streets to go to a specific area. Traffic is backed up.

“So,” he said, “it’s very uncomfortable for anybody staying … in this hotel because how do they get out? How do they come back? Curfews? All that affects the restaurant because then we have to shut down by a certain time in order for my staff to get home before the curfew time.”

Naked Taco takes preventive measures during spring break to ensure guests’ safety.

During spring break, “the only plans that we usually do take is looking into seeing what the police is going to do, what they’re going to enforce,” Mr. Barco said. “And then our only changes would be that for those specific days, we would bring security at the front just to assist and make sure that, especially now with the new law that you don’t need a concealed weapons permit, anybody’s able to carry a gun. That’s the most dangerous thing, because people do walk around with them. I do implement a no-gun policy. It’s also part of the hotel, but that is the sign that we put outside: No Weapons Allowed.

“And then during that specific time I do have security at the front that would be searching bags, which we don’t normally do.”

However, spring break in Miami Beach was not always like this.

“In the beginning [2014] it was pretty smooth,” said Mr. Barco. Spring break “started affecting the business right when covid hit, a little bit before.

The crowds that would come down would affect the businesses as to where there was a lot of violence, a lot of disruption in the streets, especially after it started to get dark, just the crowds that were coming down.

“Also, the police presence wasn’t around as much. So it pretty much made it a crazy scene. And the way it affected the restaurants was that the crowds that would come in were disruptive, were aggressive. No matter what we tried to do to have the guest feel comfortable and satisfied, it was never enough.”

In 2021, Naked Taco began to see a change with an increase in police monitoring and safety measures in the area.

“In 2021 you would see the cops, but they weren’t doing anything,” said Mr. Barco. “It was more towards 2022, and presently they’re more active.

They’re more out on the street and patrolling, they’re arresting people that they need to arrest. They’re actually removing them. They’ve actually put [license] plate readers on both sides on Fifth Street and on 41st, which is the inlet to Miami Beach, to try to stop disruptive crowds.”

Police, he said, also “go to businesses. They check up, make sure everything’s okay. So we’ve seen more of a presence from them, more support, which has helped a lot, and it’s actually deterred some of those bad groups of people coming down here to disrupt businesses.”

Despite the increase of security, the negative attention the area received continues to impact the business and its revenues. The number of European tourists and northerners who once visited Naked Taco during spring break, said Mr. Barco, has not been the same.

“Our season is shrinking because we don’t have that influx of tourism coming into Miami Beach,” he said. “We still have our groups that come in, but they don’t tend to spend the money here. They’ll go to Miami, they’ll go up north. It’s definitely – you can feel the impact of what it was before 2021 to what it is presently.”

The city’s efforts to control Miami Beach during spring break have drawn reactions from businesses in the area. Some say that barricades are not needed and instead the police should have more funding.

“Wayne Jones, the new chief of the police, needs to be funded properly in order for him to protect the citizens of Ocean Drive and Miami Beach during spring break,” said Mike Ohana, managing partner of Meet Dalia, a restaurant on Ocean Drive inside the Celino South Beach hotel. “He needs to be funded properly so he can protect us properly and remove all the gate barricades. There’s no reason for barricades. No one needs to be barricaded.”

In previous years, due to violence and deadly shootings, the city implemented curfews and barricades in an attempt to keep citizens and visitors safe.

“The city has the biggest issue,” said Mr. Ohana. “When you put barricades, you’re caging people. So they put barricades. Let them be, let them have fun. Miami has been known since the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s to be a place to go to have fun on spring break. Same thing they do in Daytona Beach, but the city [of Miami Beach] and the county, they put barricades to imprison them, you choke them, and you intimidate them.”

City Manager Alina Hudak refused to comment on the issue.

The most recent city commission meeting that focused on spring break took place July 6. In March, the commission failed to pass legislation to limit alcohol sales.

“I’m disappointed that the commission did not want to roll back liquor hours during spring break,” said Dan Gelber, the departing mayor of Miami Beach. “I think that would have helped quite a bit, but they did not. They didn’t want to do that. So we’ll have to see what happens. I think we’ve made some advancements…. Perhaps as we become a more cultural city we’ll become less of an all-night party city.”

Despite the history of spring break, businesses are optimistic for spring break in 2024.

“Hopefully this [upcoming] year, it’s going to be a little different,” said Mr. Barco. “And hopefully all the stuff that the city is implementing to make it safer will work. Hopefully we’ll start getting that influx of tourism back to Miami Beach to where we’ll be able to survive.”