LTC 243-2020 Update on Ocean Drive configuration
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
TO: Mayor Dan Gelber and Members of the City Commission
FROM: Jimmy L. Morales, City Manager
DATE: July 10, 2020
SUBJECT: Update of Ocean Drive reconfiguration
The purpose of this Letter to Commission is to provide an update on the short-term reconfiguration of Ocean
Drive, as well as address issues raised with respect to the City’s preparations for the recent Fourth of July
weekend.
Background
The Mayor convened a special meeting of the City Commission on June 29, 2020 to discuss masking
requirements and other compliance measures in response to COVID-19. During the meeting, several
Commissioners raised serious concerns about public safety in the MXE and particularly on Ocean Drive.
Several videos of unacceptable behavior by visitors on Ocean Drive (particularly the footage at the Voodoo
Lounge) prompted the Commission to direct me to come up with a plan for the upcoming weekend to address
these issues.
Working with staff, we came up with a plan that included enhanced police staffing and additional units
from Miami-Dade County police for the weekend. We also created a Hospitality Education and
Enforcement Team (HEET) comprised of personnel members from Police, Fire Prevention, Code Compliance
and Ocean Rescue. This multidisciplinary team is dedicated to ensuring hospitality and restaurant
establishments are abiding by all emergency measures in order to maintain a safe experience for residents
and visitors. They were directed to use the combination of State, County and City emergency orders to
enforce the reopening guidelines and shut down bad operators that are putting the public at risk (as was
done with Voodoo Lounge, which remained closed through the weekend). I amended my emergency
orders to close package liquor stores citywide at 8 p.m. (making it consistent with the reduced hours in the
MXE), and issue a curfew starting at 12:30 a.m. I also used my high impact weekends authority to allow
only ambient music in the MXE during the holiday weekend. As you know, subsequent to my orders, the
County Mayor imposed his own 10 p.m. curfew countywide.
Re-opening a lane on Ocean Drive to vehicular traffic
While working with City staff to assess the challenges in the MXE and specifically on Ocean Drive, it was
pointed out by Police leadership that Ocean Drive was a tale of two streets. During the daytime, the street,
which had been closed to vehicular traffic for a long time, served as a nice environment for pedestrians and
bicyclists. At night, however, the street changed into an open-air cabaret environment that was very
difficult to manage. It was PD’s recommendation that by reopening one lane for vehicular traffic, we would
significantly reduce the area available for congregation and make it easier for PD to manage the crowd
and disperse folks when the curfew kicked in. In fact, their comments to me after the weekend indicate
that the strategy accomplished it’s intended goal. Furthermore, they point out that the lane of vehicular
traffic also relieved some of the traffic problems on Collins Avenue and even reduced some of the loitering
on Collins Avenue as some of those folks chose to drive the strip instead. As such, the purpose of re-
opening a lane of vehicular traffic was not to prioritize business over residents. Rather, it was to directly
respond to the public safety concerns expressed by our residents, businesses and Commissioners.
Thankfully, the holiday weekend was relatively uneventful in the MXE district.
Communication with the Commissioners
Mainstream and social media have reported that I did not communicate with the Mayor and Commission
regarding the reopening of one lane of vehicular traffic on Ocean Drive. As I indicated above, the
Commission discussion about the need to address the issues on Ocean Drive and in the MXE, and the
direction to me to put together a plan for the holiday weekend, occurred at the Monday Commission
meeting. There was no other Commission meeting scheduled last week after Monday. As such, I did what I
normally do in between meetings, which is send nightly COVID-19 email updates and occasional emails as
needed during the day. Last week was no different (copies of the below referenced emails are attached
hereto):
1. On July 1, at 9:39 a.m., I emailed the Commission informing them of my intention to amend the
emergency order to close package liquor stores citywide at 8 p.m., and to impose a curfew at 12:30 a.m.
each night.
2. On July 1, in my nightly COVID-19 email update, I informed the Commission of the creation of
the HEET team and confirmed that I had revised my emergency order as I had indicated in the email
referenced above.
3. On July 2, at 10:30 a.m., I emailed the Commission informing them of the work being done with
respect to Ocean Drive, the Zoom meetings that had been held with PD and the ODA, and the work done by
Transportation staff in laying out a safe way to create one lane of vehicular traffic while preserving a
pedestrian path (a schematic of such layout was attached to the email). The email indicated that the goal
was to implement the plan for the holiday weekend if we could complete the logistics in time. I received no
response.
4. On July 3, at 11:47 a.m., I emailed the Commission to update them on the weekend plans,
indicating that we had obtained the necessary barricades and barriers, and therefore would be able to
begin implementing the Ocean Drive plan that evening.
It is quite possible that some of the Commissioners may not have read the emails until a later date. We are
all so busy responding to issues during this pandemic, and we all receive many, many emails each day. But I
do know that I communicated with the Mayor and Commissioners in a manner consistent with what I have
been doing throughout the pandemic.
Update
The County Mayor has now partially rolled back the re-opening of restaurants and extended the 10 p.m.
curfew indefinitely. Since only outdoor dining is now permitted, we clearly need to provide the restaurants
the ability to expand their seating onto the street as was the case before. We anticipate that more
restaurants will now want to take advantage of this program.
We also understand that many in the community were disappointed to see the reduced space available for
pedestrians and bicyclists under the configuration adopted for the 4th of July weekend. In conversations
with Police, the ODA and other stakeholders, we think that there is an opportunity to implement a hybrid
approach that (i) closes the Road entirely to vehicular traffic from Monday through Thursday and (ii)
reopens one lane to vehicular traffic at night from Friday through Sunday when public safety concerns are
most serious. We would retain the barricades and use them to create separate pedestrian and bicycle
lanes when the road is closed to vehicular traffic (which is responsive to safety concerns we heard from
pedestrians); and the barricades would also be used on those three nights when the lane reopens to
vehicular traffic. Given the 10 p.m. curfew, the impact on pedestrians and cyclists is limited under this
hybrid approach. We are considering experimenting with this approach this weekend to see how it works.
My intention is to bring a discussion to the July 17th Special Commission meeting about the short and
medium-term configuration of Ocean Drive. Given the current resurgence of the virus, the need for
expanded outdoor dining is likely to last for weeks, if not months. Options include (i) one lane of vehicular
traffic, (ii) fully closing the street for only pedestrian and bicycles, (iii) keeping the barricades in place and
having separate lanes for pedestrians and bicyclists, and (iv) a hybrid version that keeps the road closed to
vehicular traffic, except for nighttime and/or high impact weekends. We hopefully will have some lessons
from the experiences of the different approaches tried during the pandemic that can inform the discussion.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or your thoughts on the hybrid approach in the
short term. Thanks