Miami Beach City Commissioner Mark Samuelian said “enough is enough” when it comes to the unsafe behavior of scooter drivers. After hearing last week that scooter operators were not adhering to a new ordinance that made business owners responsible for renter violations, he quickly worked with the City Administration to come up with proposed legislation to limit the number of rental scooters, make overnight rentals illegal, and increase the penalties for violating the scooter law.
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Samuelian’s proposed ordinance, co-sponsored by Commissioner Steven Meiner, would limit the maximum number of scooters in a fleet to 25. In addition, overnight rentals would be prohibited with rental hours restricted to between 7 pm and 7 am each day. Businesses would be responsible for ensuring scooters are returned by 7 pm; if not, the City would have the authority to “impound and confiscate” any scooters on public property between the prohibited hours of 7 pm through 7 am.
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“These motorized scooters are dangerously violating our rules,” Samuelian says. “They’re disturbing quality of life for our residents and adding to a perception that anything goes in Miami Beach.”
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“Other cities have gone down this path too,” according to Samuelian, including Panama City which, like Miami Beach, has also had difficulty with unruly Spring Break crowds. They have “taken the step, with some success legally, to actually ban the rental of scooters,” Samuelian said. In November, an appeals court upheld Panama City’s plan to ban rental scooters beginning in September 2020.
