Editorial: My Plan for Memorial Day Weekend

Dave Crystal

Candidate for Mayor of Miami Beach

This past Memorial Day weekend in Miami Beach was marred by one of the worst Urban Beach Weekend festivals in recent history. In the wake of this last episode of what has become a regularly timed man-made seasonal disaster, the average Miami Beach citizen has finally risen up and said, “Enough!:” Enough of the public fornication and urination; enough of the pervasive property damage; enough of the harassment of our gay men and the groping and near-rape of our straight women; and finally enough of the current administration which has sat on its hands year after year, kowtowing to special interests and race-mongering organizations like the NAACP and ACLU at the expense of the good citizens of Miami Beach.

Let us make this point abundantly clear before we proceed on this topic: There is no net societal benefit to the citizens of Miami Beach in having Urban Beach Weekend (UBW) in our city. When you consider that the City of Miami Beach spends over one million dollars more than what is customary on police, fire and other overtime due to UBW, the benefit of whatever additional luxury taxes and bed taxes accrued is completely wiped out by the cost of the weekend. But it’s not just money we, the citizens of Miami Beach, lose every Memorial Day weekend; it’s our safety, our security, our peace of mind, and frankly our basic rights! We lose the right to walk in south beach for fear of our lives and safety; we lose the right to life, liberty and property as our front lawns and businesses get trashed without recourse and the stench of urine permeates our air; we lose our dignity and way of life, as we are forced to watch or listen to these “urban” tourists fornicate right outside our windows. But the current Mayor Matti Bower doesn’t seem to care about our rights; she is more concerned with the right of the NAACP or ACLU to sue us if heaven forbid we finally have leaders who stand up for our rights. When asked by the Miami Herald to comment on the recent disaster, all Matti Bower could say is as follows: “”We are also up in arms… We have put up with this for 10 years . . . there’s not many options,” and, “I don’t want to be rash and say we’ll do this and then have to back out and say we can’t legally do it,”. The Herald then asked, “Is the American Civil Liberties Union that influential over government decisions?” “I guess so,” was Bower’s response.

Crisis after crisis, whether as systemic as the fiscal crisis that currently grips the City of Miami Beach, or as seasonal as UBW, Mayor Bower has demonstrated a complete lack of leadership and an inability to proffer a plan for the future. Well, I, on the other hand, have a plan. To remedy many of the problems caused by the Bower regime, I devised the “Crystal Plan” even prior to announcing my candidacy for mayor. The plan, which may be found at WWW.CrystalforMayor.com, uses economies of scale and scope to save our community from bankruptcy without raising taxes. In terms of reforming Memorial Day Weekend, in particular, I am once again the only candidate with an actual plan, and here it is:

1)    Buy email lists from hip hop event promoters and disc jockeys all across the east coast. Starting in January, blast-email these recipients the faux news that Urban Beach Weekend 2012 has been moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey. To a large extent this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2)    Return Memorial Day weekend to its proper stature and purpose, and that is: honor the brave men and women who lost their lives defending our freedom. We should work with the VFW and USO to schedule events now for Memorial Day weekend 2012 for the purpose of bringing our troops and veterans down to the Beach as had been done in bygone days. The city shall sponsor events, such as a “land, sea and air” show for the specific purpose of attracting our troops and those who love them. Ocean drive shall be closed to vehicular traffic for the purpose of showcasing historic tanks and other armaments. The sooner we do this, the quicker we price out those prospective urban beach people who didn’t fall for the Atlantic City diversion. Furthermore, by having a more racially and stylistically diverse crowd in south beach, we will remove the tendency of herd or group mentality that typically drives the masses of Urban Beach tourists. Those who may have criminal or inconsiderate motives may not feel as comfortable pursuing them when they are surrounded by brave men and women in uniform.

3)    Put more Miami Beach police on the beat in alley ways where most of the assaults, and public urination and fornication takes place.

4)    Truly enforce maximum capacity violations at clubs that cater to these Urban Beach parties. When these tourists realize they spent so much money coming down here just to wait on line all night, they likely won’t come back.

5)    Once I’m mayor (because Bower would certainly never do this of her own volition), work with my fellow commissioners to pass a “no pants down” ordinance, the likes of which have already been passed by many cities all across this country. Anyone caught with his pants low enough to expose the majority of his underwear or buttocks shall be subject to fine and/or arrest.

The above is a logical, viable and sensible plan to reform Memorial Day Weekend for the betterment and benefit of all our citizens and tourists. I look forward to becoming the next Mayor of Miami Beach and bringing this plan to fruition.

The opinions expressed in this editorial are the author’s own and not those of the publication or its Editors and owners.

 

Category: CITY, EDITORIAL