Miami Beach Cracks the Anti-Cruiser Code

Can’t Just Kick ‘Em Out? Make It So They Can’t Get Food Instead

Peter Swanson Aug 11

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Municipalities convinced that liveaboard boats lead to derelict boats now have a foolproof solution to the problem—as long as they share the same moral code as Cruela de Ville and the City of Miami Beach.

August 2024 will mark the month Miami Beach found the formula for victory over what it calls “boat squatters.” This tony seaside community has had a long-running feud with cruisers that has gone through several phases, often turning on the latest change in Florida anchoring laws.

Late last year, the city’s latest hope of legislating local anchoring out of existence fell short. Senate Bill 192 would have limited anchoring within 200 yards of any part of Miami Beach between the MacArthur Causeway to the Julia Tuttle Causeway. In its amended form, it only banned anchoring between a strip of islands along the Venetian Causeway crossing Biscayne Bay.

If you aren’t familiar with the geography, no worries. One legislator said the amended bill affected about three percent of waters originally included, most notably not the part near downtown referred to as Sunset Harbour. The liveaboard community was relieved by the compromise, but not for long.

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Starve ‘Em

Their nemesis, Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez, had a clever plan. His idea was to deprive them of the ability to buy food. “Since we can’t control what happens on the water, we can certainly control how you get to land,” Suarez told Miami’s Local 10 News.

Once upon a time, cruisers in the vicinity of Sunset Lake and Venetian Causeway had three ways to get ashore to buy groceries and enjoy the amenities of downtown Miami Beach, which was just a 15 minute walk away. They could tie their dinghies to a canal-side dock by Publix supermarket, dock them at the Maurice Gibb boat ramp or lie alongside a canal bulkhead.

With Suarez as point man, the City Commission eliminated these options one by one, first by tearing out the Publix dock, then outlawing bulkhead tie-ups and finally severely restricting access to the Gibb ramp service dock.

Writing for the Miami Herald, Aaron Leibowitz said:

A new ordinance, which received final approval from the City Commission late last month and took effect August 3, declares that the boat ramp at Maurice Gibb Park in Sunset Harbour can only be used by city residents to “launch and retrieve noncommercial vessels”—not to dock boats, even temporarily, or pick up and drop off passengers.

Previously, motorized boats could dock at the ramp for 20 minutes. That time limit remains in place at a nearby floating dock for kayaks and paddleboards.

The law imposes steep penalties: $1,000 for a first offense, then $2,000 and $5,000 for a second and third offense, plus an option for criminal charges with up to 60 days in jail. The ordinance also calls for immediate towing of the offending boat, which can cost over $1,000 to retrieve from a private tow company.

Checkmate, boat squatters!

You can no longer buy groceries, walk the dog or grab a Cuban Sandwich at the Havana 57.

Mooring Field

Many Southern sailors have expressed hostility to mooring fields, even though land access and amenities (showers, holding-tank pump-outs and laundry facilities) are baked into the formula.

Miami Beach has a plan for just such a mooring field at Sunset Harbour and nearby, which will accomodate 147 boats, some portion of which will be for liveaboards. According to the Herald, there are typically about 100 liveaboard boats at anchor nowadays. The newspaper quoted some of the boat people as welcoming the idea of a mooring field, and why wouldn’t they at this point?

The city has set March 2026 as the target for opening the planned mooring field for business, as shown below:

In his crusade to run-off liveaboards—Suarez called it his No. 1 priority—the freshman commissioner made an environmental case against anchoring. He alleged (as one does) that everyone was pumping raw sewage into the bay and that their anchor chains were scraping seagrass off the bottom.

Loose Cannon rarely has reason to praise conventional media for coverage of boating issues, but there is an exception. On February 28, Miami’s WPLG Local10 television news—specifically journalist Louis Aguirre and producer Anastasia Pavlinskaya Brenman—aired an excellent story that used hard data to rebut both Suarez claims.

Hardly anyone was pumping overboard based on police inspections, and, according to experts, there was hardly any seagrass there in the first place—not for decades.

Which begs the question: Why not just wait until March 2026, and let the new mooring field take care of whatever it is that Miami Beach sees as the problem? According to Florida law, no one can anchor in a mooring field or close by. Surely the insurance requirement and monthly rent, which is likely to be pricey, will screen out boats likely to become derelict.

So, what is your motivation, David Suarez? Admit it, you and your fellow commissioners are just real-life Cruelas.