MIAMI _ Delayed by more than a week, Miami-Dade's beaches will reopen Wednesday after the county's mayor said he's ending the curfew tied to a string of protests that remained peaceful and largely free of the isolated damage seen on the first night of demonstrations on May 30.
Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office issued a statement Monday afternoon stating: "Mayor Gimenez will be lifting the countywide curfew this afternoon. And, beaches in Miami-Dade are set to open on Wednesday."
The announcement ends two of the most sweeping restrictions still in place under Gimenez emergency orders _ one dating from March and the start of the coronavirus shutdown, the other from the first night of Miami demonstrations sparked by George Floyd's death in Minneapolis when a police officer knelt on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes.
Gimenez said the curfew ends Monday, eliminating a decree requiring all residents to be home by 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. the following day. Gimenez imposed the countywide curfew as downtown Miami protests were accompanied by ransacking stores and burning police cars on May 30. That was the peak of property damage in more than a week's worth of demonstrations, and the county's Corrections Department stopped reporting protest-related arrests June 3 because only two people had been taken into custody the night before.
The mayor did roll back the curfew to midnight last week, then shifted it to 9 p.m. by the time the weekend ended. The measure forced restaurants to close, drawing criticism from the industry and from city leaders who saw a countywide curfew as too broad.
"It was certainly helpful during the first two nights, when there was vandalism in the city," said Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, who said it's a challenge to balance public safety against restrictions that hurt businesses. "I just think a more nuanced approach is able to strike that balance better. By nuanced, I mean more local."
The planned reopening of Miami-Dade beaches follows a string of other county restrictions lifted Monday, including closure orders on gyms, massage studios and tattoo shops. Those changes were announced last week, along with lifting a closure on dog parks across the county. Over the weekend, Gimenez changed that order with a significant new restriction: Dog parks could be open, but dogs must remain leashed while inside them.
For beaches, new rules ban clusters of more than 10 beachgoers, and no coolers unless they're shared by members of the same household. Dogs are also banned from beaches countywide.
The beach closures began March 19 from an emergency order by Gimenez in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. He had planned to lift that order June 1.
Then he canceled the reopening eight days ago on the heels of some Miami stores being ransacked and police cars burned.
At the time, Gimenez said beaches would remain closed as long as a curfew was in place. Sunday night marked the ninth day of the curfew.
Monday's announcement followed a press conference at the Miami-Dade County Emergency Operations Center in Doral where Gimenez said he was ready to end the curfew but that beaches wouldn't reopen immediately.
"We needed a little bit more time for people to prepare," he said.
