Miami Beach to Prohibit Short-Term and Vacation Rentals Starting Thursday

Starting Thursday, Miami Beach will prohibit the booking and operations of short-term and vacation rentals. This follows the city's modified reopening order following a surge in coronavirus cases.

“As the State of Florida continues to experience elevated numbers of COVID-19 cases, the City of Miami Beach has updated its Emergency Order to close and prohibit all short-term rentals in the city, effective, July 16, 2020 at 12:01 a.m,” the city said in a press release.

“Short-term and vacation rentals shall cancel all existing reservations, and shall refrain from accepting new guests or making new reservations,” it added. This will go on “until the Order expires” until the government makes amendments to it.

According to Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, local police determined that rentals attract large crowds.

“There’ve been too many gatherings that have not been following our mask rules and our systems and guidelines, and a lot of those crowds are coming from the short-term rentals,” Gelber said. “They seem to just have attracted a party crowd and made it impossible to enforce,” he also mentioned.

Gelber hopes that the new measure will help encourage more people to follow Miami Beach's social distancing and mask guidelines.

Fox Business reported that the move comes as the state has surpassed 291,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. The state has also recorded more than 4,500 deaths.

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