Miami Beach ramps up lax sidewalk cafe policy. Business owners fear ‘death sentence.’ – By Martin Vassolo (Miami Herald) / Nov 19 2021
In what local leaders say is a step toward taming South Beach’s wild side, City Hall is cracking down on sidewalk cafe operators with a history of rule breaking.
This week, the city administration rejected 13 applications from South Beach restaurant owners seeking to renew their sidewalk cafe permits, which allow them to set up outdoor tables on the public right-of-way for a one-year period. The 13 businesses make up 9% of the 144 that applied for a renewal. Nine of the denied businesses are on Ocean Drive, where sidewalk cafe tables have been part of the postcard of the world-famous strip for decades.
City Manager Alina Hudak announced the city’s new permit-review system in a memo to the City Commission on Tuesday. The new system assigns points to different code violations and gives Hudak discretion to consider factors like bad online reviews.
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