Spring break crackdown puts focus on future of South Beach

By DAVID FISCHER
Associated Press

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Miami Beach officials have spent recent years trying to control the raucous crowds, public drinking and growing violence associated with the city’s world-famous South Beach neighborhood. Business owners claim they’re being unfairly targeted by regulations, and civil rights advocates say the city is trying to scare away Black tourists. Two shootings that left five people wounded last weekend prompted officials to impose an emergency midnight curfew for this weekend. That refocused attention on the glamourous waterfront’s future as an entertainment district or something else entirely. The city’s mayor, a Democrat, insists the crackdown is about bad behavior, not race.