An emergency meeting called by Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine in an effort to address the recent violence - including multiple incidents over Memorial Day weekend - in the city set off quite the debate over what should take place to help curb the issues.
Levine, along with Miami Beach Police Chief Dan Oates and several local businessmen, spoke Tuesday to unveil several ideas the mayor will present before the city commission.
"I'm proposing and sponsoring this week to bring back restricted alcohol sales in the Ocean Drive area once again to 2 a.m.," Levine said.
The meeting had a tense moment after Levine announced that proposal before calling out the owners of Mango's, a popular Ocean Drive cafe.
"So that's the owner of one of the big clubs who by the way constantly goes and convinces our commissioners that his business can serve till 5AM, because he does not want to reduce his income," Levine said in pointing out David Wallack.
"The mayor has excluded the business community of Ocean Drive from the table of discussion, that is a sad sad truth," Wallack responded to reporters following the meeting.
Some business owners say Levine's plans are a knee jerk reaction and that they are not the problem. They will hold a press conference Thursday at the Clevelander Hotel to give their thoughts on the matter.
This past weekend, police dealt with several issues that got attention, including a stabbing last night and a fatal shooting over a parking space that led to a police involved shooting on Alton Road.
Levine, however, was quick to say that the problems he wants to address are year round and he did not want to single out those who travel during the Memorial Day holiday.
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City officials want to put a stop to this crime.
“Urban beach weekend is a thing of the past,” said city commissioner Michael Greico. “After 17 years of trying to handle this and trying to measure success by number of arrests or lack of shootings is something that we're no longer going to tolerate.”
Arrests were down this weekend on Miami Beach as opposed to last year. Police made 96 arrests as of last night, while last year that number was closer to 200.
Officials say this is partly due to increased number of officers in the area.
