Boat dwellers protest as Miami Beach shuts down dock they use to go get food

A community of boat dwellers is protesting attempts by Miami Beach officials to cut off access to a city-owned dock that live-aboards describe as a lifeline that lets them get food and water.

On Tuesday night, footage recorded by one of the boaters showed public works employees, accompanied by police, using a truck to place a concrete barrier in front of the dock’s entrance on Dade Boulevard near Michigan Avenue. The city also removed the dock’s plastic deck, leaving only its wooden frame.

Earlier that day, city workers had put up a sign on the dock: “NO TRESPASSING. DOCK PERMANENTLY CLOSED.”

More than a dozen people who live on sailboats anchored in nearby Sunset Harbour gathered at the dock Tuesday, chanting and holding signs in protest of the city’s effort to close it. On Dec. 13, the Miami Beach City Commission voted unanimously to close and remove the dock at the urging of Commissioner David Suarez.

City officials said removing the dock entirely would likely require county approvals. But in the meantime, they said, they could move to restrict access to it.

“The city is following the direction given at the Dec. 13 commission meeting to remove the dock on Dade Blvd. near Michigan Ave.,” city spokesperson Melissa Berthier said in a statement. “The dock is permanently closed and will be removed after the city obtains the required [county] permits. No trespassing signage has also been placed.”

Berthier said the city did not need a permit to remove the dock’s plastic deck.

The small dock on the Collins Canal is directly across the street from a Publix that members of a community of about 100 boat dwellers say they rely on. They ride dinghies from their anchored sailboats to the dock and tie up to the dock or an adjacent public seawall before heading to the grocery store.

Others say they have jobs on land in Miami Beach and use the dock to get to work.

“If [Suarez] cuts our food and water supply and we can’t get to land, then we can’t work and he is kicking us out,” said Carlos Leon, a Miami Beach resident since 2013 who moved from land to a 41-foot sailboat in 2020 with his wife Jana and their German Shepherd, Apollo.

The boaters say alternative options to the dock near Publix are limited. They can’t use a public boat ramp about a half-mile away near Maurice Gibbs Memorial Park, they say, because there is a 20-minute time limit for tying up.

“There’s no other option,” said Micah Plummer, 28, a live-aboard boater from the Midwest who has called Biscayne Bay his home base for about five years.

Several boaters said the city should consider a permit or fee process for continuing to use the dock and the adjacent seawall. The city prohibits docking on public seawalls, but enforcement is limited and requires signage every 25 feet. Signs on the seawall next to the Dade Boulevard dock indicate the area is a tow-away zone.

Plummer said he feels his community is being blamed for problems they aren’t responsible for, like boats dumping sewage into the bay or making too much noise.

“We’re kind of like the easy scapegoat to say, ‘Oh, these people don’t look great, their boats look trashy, let’s attack them,’” he said. “We’re easy, low-hanging fruit.”

On Tuesday morning, the boat dwellers stood on the sidewalk waving American flags and holding signs with messaging aimed at Suarez.

“Don’t cut our access to food and water,” one read.

“Disabled residents need access to this dock,” said another.

The group was back Wednesday morning, chanting, “David Suarez, we need water.”

Suarez declined to comment for this story.

A ‘creative’ solution

At the Dec. 13 meeting, Suarez, who was elected last month, said he was looking for “creative ways” to discourage people from living on boats in Miami Beach and tying up dinghies to public seawalls, given that the city has limited jurisdiction over boats legally anchored in the bay.

A 2016 state law prohibits anchoring in certain areas of Miami Beach — including near the Venetian and Sunset islands — but boaters are still allowed to anchor in Sunset Harbour.

City officials are now working with the state to establish a mooring field that would regulate anchoring in the Sunset Harbour area, but it is likely years away.

By blocking the boat dwellers’ access to Publix, Suarez said, “I’m going to try to limit the amount of access of the people who live on these boats that come to the mainland.”

“They can’t live on a boat forever,” he said. “They have to come to the mainland to get food, water and necessary supplies.”

On Wednesday, Carlos and Jana Leon posted about the dispute on a popular Instagram account for their dog, saying Suarez was violating “our basic human rights” by “plotting to restrict our access to essential resources like food and water.” (The account has 143,000 followers, while a TikTok account for the dog has nearly half a million followers.)

Suarez replied in a comment on the post.

“No one is cutting off your food or water. No one is stopping you from going to any of the public marinas to get supplies. Your victimhood rhetoric is baseless,” he wrote. “Using your big German Shepherd for sympathy cred is ironic, big dogs like Apollo shouldn’t be living their lives on a small boat, it’s inhumane.”

Complaints about ‘derelict boats’

Suarez said he had received complaints from residents about “derelict boats” docking on city seawalls and causing concerns about “illegal conduct,” noise and litter. He also raised environmental concerns, saying the boats “spill sewage into our bay” and “ruin our precious marine seagrass with anchoring.”

“Everyone can agree that there are many unwanted ‘boat squatters’ in Miami Beach’s waterways,” Suarez wrote in an email to residents. “In short, they adversely affect our quality of life and may potentially be a public safety risk.”

Some of the complaints came from residents at the west end of Lincoln Road, about a half-mile southwest of the dock on Dade Boulevard. There, said resident Nancy Duke, boaters illegally anchor to the seawall and come ashore at a small “parklet,” where Duke said she has seen people drink alcohol, dump trash and camp out.

“As you can see below, there are serious concerns from a lack of enforcement,” Suarez wrote to City Manager Alina Hudak on Dec. 14 after forwarding an email from Duke. “Myself, along with the residents copied here would like some answers and immediate solutions. Please manage this issue accordingly.”

In recent days, Duke said, the city has installed cameras to monitor the area and stationed code enforcement officers there. She said she isn’t sure whether blocking access to the Dade Boulevard dock should also be part of the solution, but appreciates Suarez taking action.

“It takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage to do what he’s doing,” she said. “This is how change happens.”

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The live-aboards protesting the dock’s closure say they know they aren’t allowed to dock next to Lincoln Road and would be happy to help the city address derelict boats and illegal activity there.

“They just want to pass a rule to eliminate the rights of everybody when 99% do it responsibly,” Carlos Leon said. “For just the handful of people that are ruining it, go after them. Don’t bother us.”

City built the dock

Miami Beach applied for a county permit in 2011 to construct the dock as part of a broader project to expand the seawall along Dade Boulevard, records show. The dock’s proposed dimensions were three feet by 20 feet, supported by three new wood piles.

In the years since, the dock has provided live-aboards and other boaters with a key access point to the mainland.

Recently, city officials ordered the removal of an illegal addition to the dock that boaters had constructed several years ago to help handicapped people navigate it more safely.

Without access to the dock, some say they will now be forced to climb over the seawall or the recently erected barrier and risk their safety, or even face arrest.

This isn’t the first time city officials have grappled over enforcement of boat anchoring and dinghy docking.

In 2016, around two dozen dinghies were towed for violating the 20-minute tie-up time limit at public piers and a 2015 ordinance restricting tying up to public seawalls in the Collins Canal, according to the Broward Palm Beach New Times.

The enforcement came as wealthy waterfront homeowners clashed with boaters anchored near the four Sunset Islands — a battle that helped lead to the 2016 state law banning anchoring in parts of the city.

Now, a new version of the same conflict is playing out again.

“I will hold Code Enforcement accountable,” Suarez wrote in a Dec. 14 email, “and eventually these boat squatters will simply move somewhere else where enforcement is less strict.”