Miami Beach

Loophole Closed

City Commission limits restaurant size in historic district hotels

By Ben Torter

The Browns Hotel. Photo by Ben Torter

Residents fighting to save the unique ambience of the historic district south of Fifth Street won a major victory last week when the Miami Beach City Commission agreed to rules that will limit the number of seats and people allowed in area hotel restaurants and bars.

Under the new ordinance passed on first reading Feb. 13, hotels in the nine-block district will be limited to one restaurant seat per sleeping room, with a maximum occupancy of 150 percent of that number. A 100-room hotel would be permitted 100 restaurant and bar seats, and 150 people would be allowed at any given time.

“It completes the protections to the historic district south of Fifth [Street] and prevents it from becoming an extension of the entertainment zone north of Fifth,” said Frank Del Vecchio, an activist who has worked tirelessly for the law’s enactment.

The ordinance closes a loophole in the zoning code that allowed restaurants to expand larger than the hotels in which they were located. Prime One Twelve, in the Browns Hotel at 112 Ocean Drive, has been cited as the best example of what area residents don’t want, though it will be grandfathered in. It’s an eight-room hotel with 80 restaurant seats and no on-site parking. Neighbors complain that valets compete with them for parking spaces, and that the restaurant creates traffic congestion and noise.

Another target of the ordinance is the approved, yet-to-be-built 130-room Bijou Hotel at 315-321 Ocean Drive. Del Vecchio and other neighbors worried the hotel was a Trojan horse to bring in an entertainment complex similar to the mega-popular Shore Club or Nikki Beach. Since early summer, Del Vecchio has led a crusade that has whittled away the number of restaurant seats and occupancy allowed at the Bijou.

A last-minute motion Feb. 13 by Commissioners Richard Steinberg and Jerry Libbin nearly watered down the ordinance by allowing more seats. Specifically, if a hotel had more than one restaurant, the commissioners proposed allowing each one to have seats equal to the number of hotel rooms as long as they weren’t all open at the same time. At the Bijou, that would have meant separate breakfast, lunch and dinner restaurants could each have 130 seats.

“You can have a very negative impact from a venue that’s operated in the day,” Planning Director Jorge Gomez said.

Libbin withdrew his second of the motion after it became obvious that he and Steinberg didn’t have the support of city planning staff or the other commissioners.

Hoteliers who want more seats than the basic ordinance allows have the option of going through what is called a conditional use process, which requires them to appear and plead their case before the Planning and Historic Preservation boards. However, the most those boards could grant would be two seats per hotel room. A rule already in place limits occupancy in the historic district to 299 people.

Del Vecchio said the conditional use process creates an escape clause for small hotels. By law, a restaurant must have 30 seats for a beer and wine license and 40 for a full liquor license. If a 20-room hotel needs a few more restaurant seats to obtain one of those licenses, it is possible.

“It takes care of the special case where the hotel can’t work without a liquor or wine license,” Del Vecchio said.

The ordinance will be voted on a second time at the March 12 City Commission meeting.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com