Cristian Garrido works at Starlite Cafe. New to the job, he said he only saw the chaotic spring break videos on social media. Now, he’s bracing for what’s to come this upcoming Memorial Day weekend but staying positive.
City officials say thousands of people are expected to visit.
"It’s really become a challenge to control this many people," said Mayor of Miami Beach Dan Gelber.
Gelber said high safety measures will be in place, including capacity limits on various segments of the beach, suspension of renting certain vehicles like golf carts and limitations of traffic routes.
"We’re also going to have traffic circles on south beach at night that is going to really limit movement. We’re going to have license plate readers on our two major causeways," said Gelber.
City officials say the license plate readers will be set up Thursday night along the 15th street corrdor and Monday night along the 5th sreet and 41st street corridors to screen incoming traffic.
The high-impact weekend measures are in effect starting 7pm Friday through 7pm Monday.
"There will be some people who come here for bad purposes or to do something illegal and we are preparing ourselves for those people because we don’t want them to ruin it for everybody else," said Gelber.
As for Broward, Mayor Steve Geller said they’re not expecting large crowds and have not put new safety measures in place.
Miami Beach Police will be working 12-hour shifts with assistance from other police agencies, including Coral Gables PD, Miami-Dade County PD and Ft. Lauderdale PD.
