New Law Bans Lone Adults From Miami Beach Playgrounds

Adults who are found in designated Miami Beach playground areas without accompanying minors will be asked to leave -- and possibly fined -- under a new law that goes into effect on Sunday.

"If you don't have a kid, then what the heck are you doing in a tot lot?'' Miami Beach Commissioner Jorge Exposito explained to the Miami Herald. "It's an instrument for parents and police, and it provides a safe environment for the children.''

Exposito proposed the rule after witnessing an adult man "behave lewdly" in front of children at South Pointe Park. The ordinance, which passed unanimously on June 9, goes into effect only at 19 newly-designated "child-required" playgrounds.

Despite opposition from a resident who regularly uses exercise equipment at one of the playgrounds -- and, perhaps, questionable constitutionality -- there was considerable public support for the new law. 

"People have the right to be where they want to be,'' resident Eliana Couch told the paper. "But as a mother of two little kids, anything to keep my kids safe is all right with me.''

The easy vote was thanks, in part, to seemingly succesful precedents in New York City and San Francisco. In those cities, just like Miami Beach, responsibility to report violators to police falls to parents and park employees.

"I'm so in favor of it," Kathy Sweet, a Brooklyn mother of three, told us just days after a man exposed himself to her family at a park. "[A lone adult] hanging out in a gated playground makes me uncomfortable, and I appreciate the law because it means I'm not the one who has to walk up and say 'I'm uncomfortable with you being here, please leave.'

"The law backs me as a parent so I don't have to explain some 'feeling,' and I appreciate the support of the police when they step in and help with that."

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