Lifeguards logged 24 diver-flag and boat calls since June; police wrote five citations in a year, all in the bay

Miami Beach Ocean Rescue logged 24 responses from June through October involving divers in the water without a dive flag, boats near divers or other trouble along the shoreline, while Miami Beach Police Marine Patrol wrote five diver-down citations in the year ending Oct. 25, all of them in the bay. The figures are in a city memo for the Nov. 9 meeting of the commission’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee.

Florida law requires boaters to make a reasonable effort to stay 300 feet from a displayed diver-down flag in open water and 100 feet in rivers, inlets and channels, and to go at idle speed when closer. Commissioner Tanya K. Bhatt asked for the discussion in July after complaints from residents, divers and boaters about vessels passing close to divers.

Who can write a ticket

Lifeguards from the city’s 38 towers step in when boats come near divers or swimmers, but Ocean Rescue has no authority to issue citations, the memo says. It has to call Marine Patrol or the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the delay weakens the deterrent.

Ocean Rescue’s log counts three such responses in June, five in July, three in August, six in September and seven in October. The October entries also include rescues of distressed swimmers and kayakers.

The police side of the memo tells a different story. Marine Patrol found no diver-down calls to the city’s dispatch center in the past year, and officers on routine patrols around the jetty and the reef line saw no violations. Of its five citations, four were for divers displaying the flag improperly and one for leaving a flag up with no diver in the water; two were written during the July lobster mini-season. Officers can cite a boater only for a violation they see, and divers in the water rarely have a phone to record a boat’s registration number, the memo says.

What the city proposes

The administration recommends that police, Ocean Rescue and other departments work out clearer citation rules, look at adding nearshore patrols and boats such as rigid-hull inflatables or rescue jet skis that can launch from shore, and step up education at marinas, rental shops and dive operators. It says stronger enforcement would cost money for staff, vessels and equipment, but gives no figure.

The committee meets Monday, Nov. 9, at 9 a.m. at City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive.