Miami Beach officials want to remove a civil citation option for marijuana possession

While much of the country has moved toward decriminalization and more lenient enforcement of marijuana laws in recent years, city leaders in Miami Beach say they want to go in the opposite direction.

The City Commission voted 4-3 Wednesday to give initial approval to the repeal of a 2015 ordinance that gave police the option to issue civil citations for possession of 20 grams or less of marijuana. The proposal will face a final vote later this month.

“Maintaining it decriminalized sends the wrong message,” said Commissioner Alex Fernandez, who proposed the change. Fernandez said he has smoked marijuana himself, but only in private.

“You want to smoke marijuana? You want to have marijuana? Do it at home,” he said. “There is a place to do that, not in our streets.”

In 2019, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced that it would no longer prosecute minor marijuana possession cases. That development came in response to a state law legalizing hemp, with State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle saying there was no way for officers to visually distinguish between hemp and marijuana.

But later that year, Miami Beach passed an ordinance outlawing the smoking of both marijuana and hemp on public property. The city employs its own prosecutors to pursue those cases.

Fernandez and other commissioners who supported the measure Wednesday said that they have received many complaints from residents about the stench of marijuana in city parks and that the move is about sending a message that Miami Beach is no longer a “party town.”

They said that message is especially important a month before the arrival of spring break visitors in March. The commission supported a slew of measures Wednesday to try to stave off the chaos and violence that has characterized spring break in recent years.

“Where do we want to be as a city?” said Commissioner David Suarez. “Do we want to be a city where you can carry marijuana with you and smoke it at your leisure in a park, or do we want to get serious about being a resident-friendly, resident-focused town where we don’t allow drugs to be exchanged in our city?”

Others opposed the change. Commissioner Tanya Katzoff Bhatt said that while she hopes to change the city’s hard-partying reputation, she doesn’t believe the removal of the civil citation option is likely to change people’s behavior.

She added that Black and brown people are disproportionately arrested and jailed for marijuana possession and that the move could contribute to Miami Beach’s reputation for being unwelcoming to minorities.

“We have an image problem,” Katzoff Bhatt said.

Suarez and Mayor Steven Meiner co-sponsored Fernandez’s proposal. Commissioner Laura Dominguez also voted in favor.

Katzoff Bhatt, Joseph Magazine and Kristen Rosen Gonzalez voted against it.

Miami Beach has barely utilized civil citations

In 2015, the Miami Beach City Commission voted to give city police officers the option to issue a $100 civil citation for misdemeanor marijuana possession instead of making an arrest with a criminal charge. A misdemeanor amount is 20 grams or less, or about enough to fit in a sandwich bag.

The Miami Beach Police Department said at the time that the move would save the city about $40,000 a year in costs associated with arrests and prosecution of possession cases.

But the department has made almost no use of the civil citation option in the years since, Police Chief Wayne Jones said at Wednesday’s meeting. Jones said police have only issued about 10 such citations in the past nine years.

Jones didn’t say how many arrests police have made for low-level marijuana possession during the same period. The Miami Herald has requested that information from the police department.

Miami-Dade County approved a similar civil citation option for marijuana possession in 2015. The Miami New Times reported in 2018 that police departments countywide had sent more than 5,000 people to jail for possession of 20 grams or less of marijuana in the first three years after the civil citation option was approved.

Medical marijuana is legal in Florida, but the drug remains illegal for recreational use at the state level.

Miami Beach officials have touted a tough-on-crime approach for misdemeanor “quality of life” offenses. Late last year, the city’s police department said it had made dozens of arrests and seized more than 2,000 grams of marijuana and more than 200 grams of cocaine during a six-week crackdown on drug dealing in South Beach.

Meiner, a former city commissioner who was elected as mayor in November, has been a key proponent of the city’s approach. On Wednesday, he said he believes issuing civil citations for marijuana possession is “almost meaningless.”

“The message gets out and it shows ... that this is not important to our city,” Meiner said. “We’re now saying this is a serious issue in our city, and we’re going to enforce it.”