MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A noise ban has been established in Miami Beach after weeks of feuding between residents and business owners in the popular tourist spot.
City commissioners unanimously approved the ordinance during a meeting Wednesday afternoon. The new rule only applies to businesses in the entertainment district, between Fifth Street and 15th Street, for the next four months.
So what's the point of the new law?
City leaders believe restricting sound from the tourist areas will decrease crime rates.
"We believe that this one area is contributing unnecessarily and disproportionately to not only the crime but to the damage to the Miami Beach brand," Mayor Philip Levine said.
Restaurants, bars and nightclubs from Fifth to 15th streets had been previously exempt from the city's noise laws. But now, that exemption has been lifted temporarily.
That means popular tourist spots like Mango's Tropical Cafe in South Beach must keep the volume down.
"It involves me sitting a person across the street on a chair seven days a week and paying people to sit there with a radio, and if you can hear it above a whisper, call it in and it's too loud," Mango's owner Dave Wallack said.
His neighbor, Sherbrooke Hotel owner Mitch Novick, said the ordinance "is a step in the right direction."
Wallack and Novick have been feuding over the matter. Wallack accused Novick of stealing towels from Mango's.
Novick said he was just borrowing them.
"How do you borrow when you have never asked nor been given permission to do so?" Wallack said.