Less spring break ‘chaos’ on South Beach. But also less money for businesses

For Pizza Rustica general manager Lucas Quinan, the first Friday night of the first spring break weekend on Miami Beach could’ve been just another Tuesday. And, that was the problem.

Nobody who works in South Beach businesses wanted to revisit what some called “the chaos” of past spring breaks. But, some Miami Beach businesses thought the city’s “spring break breakup” threw too much business out with the chaos bath.

Quinan is in that group. Weekends at the popular pizza joint at Ninth Street and Washington Avenue usually find the outside tables occupied and a steady stream of folks satisfying the demands of meal times or munchies. With Saturday afternoon’s foot traffic on Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue resembling an early weekday afternoon, it was no surprise Quinan said business resembled that, too.

“We’re down 50%,” said Quinan compared to last year’s spring break Friday and Saturday.

Quinan found greatest fault with parking rules changes that limited or closed access at some public lots and jacked up the rates to $100 at other lots. And, drivers who want to bet on parking illegally do so with a bigger downside for a lost bet — a $516 towing rate in South Beach for non-residents.

Also, Quinan pointed out that the parking paucity left Pizza Rustica’s employees struggling to find spots for their cars.

READ MORE: How is Miami Beach’s Spring Break breakup going?

“Good for security, (cutting down) shootings and all the stuff that happened before. Which is good,” Quinan said. “But, I think they have more ways to control that without closing parking lots. People can’t park so people won’t come. People will go to downtown, Wynwood, Brickell, but they won’t come to South Beach.”

Also, the DUI checkpoint on Fifth Street, the license plate readers on the Julia Tuttle Causeway and traffic funneled through a few arteries by street blockages create the kind of traffic clogs that frustrate people during Miami-Dade weekdays.

Noting the law enforcement officers from multiple agencies — “they have more police on the street than people” — Quinan wondered if the increased police presence alone could’ve quelled out of control behavior.

Janet Alvarado, manager at Puerto Sagua, which has been serving Cuban cuisine at 700 Collins Ave. since 1962., also said her business was paying the price for the city’s crackdown. On Saturday afternoon, five tables were occupied inside the restaurant’s north side, five people sat at the big U-shaped counter that dominates the south side of the restaurant and two outside tables had customers.

“How are we going to pay rent?” Alvarado said. “How are we going to pay our employees? Because we don’t have (enough) customers. There are customers, but few customers.”

While allowing “we’re happy with the security,” Alvardo said focus should be less on students coming for spring break and more on “the infiltrators, the drug dealers, the prostitution, which is a bad aspect of tourism in general.”

She, too, expressed displeasure with the parking rules that turned people away from the public garages, such as the one across Seventh Street from Puerto Sagua.

Alvarado said the restaurant’s clientele is “more tourist than locals, but now, we don’t have anything.”

Others thought the city did what it had to do, including David Wallack, owner of Mango’s Tropical Cafe, a staple at 900 Ocean Drive for over 30 years.

“I was in 16 stampedes last year. I closed Mango’s before the curfew,” Wallack said. “I was fed up with what was going on in the streets. There had to be a major change. I agree with what (the city) did.”

Wallack expected next week, the second of the two weekends considered “highest impact” by the city, “will be the litmus test” of the increased security measures, but “it seems, so far, to be effective.”

Eliminating the shootings and fights featured on media and social media around the world from South Beach was step one, Wallack said, toward getting Miami Beach away from “the chaos during the second and third weeks of March.”

But, acknowledging the drop in revenue, he said, “If Plan A is successful, what’s Plan B to resurrect business for the area?”

Wallack’s answer would be starting in 2026 — he believes the time has passed for getting this together for 2025 — a three-day music festival with top talent to bring people to South Beach and give them a directed place to be.

As for 2024, “peaceful is the order of this year,” Wallack said.