Restaurants are reopening. Sidewalks are coming back to life. America is shaking off a long COVID winter. But in Miami Beach, you might not even know a pandemic had happened. Verónica Zaragovia is a reporter with WLRN, the public radio station for Miami and South Florida, and she’s observed over the past few weeks a lot people crowding on to Miami Beach’s main drag, Ocean Drive. “It’s been really crowded.
Those videos on social media show police arriving with military-style equipment, firing pepper balls into the crowd. What is also evident in those videos is that most of the partiers on Ocean Drive that night were Black. The thing is that both the mayor and some commissioners in the Miami Beach government have said that there is a need to change the kinds of businesses that exist on Ocean Drive. The mayor, Dan Gelber, has said that he wants the entertainment district to change to an area to appreciate the Art Deco architecture. Nobody has ever said that Black tourists are not welcome here, but it just depends how you interpret what’s being said.
HENRY30126252 POTUS VP I think if govs keep states open w/ various activities, & cases surge, they will have to wait until the rest of the country is vaccinated. Seems to me that these govs r deliberately sabotaging any efforts to get control of the pandemic.