Miami Beach weighs barring alcohol, vape and OnlyFans-style ads at events on public property
Proposed special event rules would bar those ads on banners visible outside an event's footprint, whether or not the city sponsors the event.
Banners for alcohol, tobacco, vaping products and sexual content, including platforms such as OnlyFans, would be barred from view outside the footprint of special events on Miami Beach public property under language proposed for the city’s special event guidelines, according to a memo for the Nov. 9 meeting of the commission’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee.
The rule would apply to events on public property whether or not the city sponsors them. The memo doesn’t name specific events; city parks and the beach, including Lummus Park, host many of the city’s largest permitted festivals.
Today the only written limits are in an administrative procedure on sponsorships and advertising, the memo says. It bans ads for unlawful goods, tobacco, firearms, sexual services and political content, and keeps alcohol ads 250 feet from schools, day care centers and houses of worship, but it mainly covers ads the city or its contractors place. It doesn’t clearly reach banners put up by private event producers, vendors or sponsors, and it doesn’t mention vaping or sexually explicit online platforms. Some city departments write ad restrictions into sponsorship deals, but not consistently across contracts, grants and fee waivers, which the memo says makes the rules hard to enforce.
The current guidelines say only that sponsor banners must stay inside the event site, come down when the event ends and not hang over streets. The proposed wording keeps that and adds the four banned categories for any banner or sign visible outside the event area. The memo describes the goal as keeping event spaces family-friendly and limiting young people’s exposure to such ads.
Commissioners Tanya K. Bhatt and Monica Matteo-Salinas sponsored the referral, which the commission sent to the committee May 20. The committee can recommend the change; the memo lists no cost. It meets at 9 a.m. Monday in the commission chambers at City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, and on Zoom.
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