The city has been criticized for its enforcement of the curfew in South Beach over the weekend, when the police used pepper balls to try to disperse crowds.

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Police Break Up Spring Break Crowds in Miami Beach

The police fired pepper balls to disperse crowds after an 8 p.m. curfew went into effect on Saturday. Local Miami officials said people had flocked to the city because of its relatively few coronavirus restrictions.

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By Neil Vigdor and Azi Paybarah

One day after the spring break oasis of South Beach descended into chaos, with the police struggling to control overwhelming crowds and making scores of arrests, officials in Miami Beach decided on Sunday to extend an emergency curfew for up to three weeks.

The officials there went so far as to approve closing the famed Ocean Drive to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. — the hours of the curfew — for four nights a week through April 12. Residents, hotel guests and employees of local businesses are exempt from the closure.

The strip, frequented by celebrities and tourists alike, was the scene of a much-criticized skirmish on Saturday night between at-times unruly spring breakers who ignored social distancing and masking guidelines, and police officers who used pepper balls to disperse a large crowd just hours after the curfew had been introduced.

The restrictions were a stunning concession to the city’s inability to control unwieldy crowds of revelers that the city and the state of Florida aggressively courted amid the continuing coronavirus pandemic.

“I believe it’s a lot of pent-up demand from the pandemic and people wanting to get out, and our state has been publicly advertised as being open, so that’s contributing to the issue,” David Richardson, a member of the Miami Beach City Commission, said on Sunday.

In an emergency meeting, the commission approved maintaining the 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew from Thursday through Sunday for three more weeks, which is when spring break typically ends. Officials also kept in place bridge closures on the nights of the curfew along several causeways that connect Miami Beach with the mainland.

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