Calling the non-binding referendum vote five months ago a mandate — as if 57% was a landslide — Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and city leaders have been working since January to ban alcohol sales after 2 a.m.

Fresh off the Spring Break curfew that was more about development than crowd or crime control — more about real estate than racism — the city commission on Wednesday will look at three different options.

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Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins is the invited speaker this week for the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club meeting in Miami Beach.

Higgins is going to want to discuss county projects in Miami Beach, including budget and legislative highlights. But Ladra is pretty certain the crowd will want to know about the monorail project proposed for the Beach corridor of the countywide rapid transit plan.

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Leaked audio of a September Zoom call organized by former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine shows that current Mayor Dan Gelber offered developers and real estate investors an inside track to get their projects built — in exchange for contributions to a political action committee.

You scratch my back, I’ll get your mixed-use mega complex approved.

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Property owners would have to make it up with increased taxes

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Business owners, politicians, community leaders, hospitality workers, waitresses, bartenders, drag queens, seniors and the families of hundreds of service workers have come out against a Miami Beach ballot question that could rollback the last call for alcohol sales from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Opponents say there is no indication crime is worse in those three wee hours. In fact, crime rose during the pandemic when the city imposed a midnight curfew because customers moved from the venues at Ocean Drive and Lincoln Road to private parties at AirBnB rentals in residential neighborhoods. And that tragic murder of a young father at a South Beach sidewalk caf´é happened in broad daylight at 6:30 p.m.

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Miami Beach voters have a familiar straw ballot question to answer before Nov. 2: Do they want to ban alcohol sales in South Beach after 2 AM?

It’s the same question voters solidly rejected in 2017, by a very comfortable 65% of the vote. Sort of a mandate. So why’s it coming back? That’s a much better question.

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