It's not uncommon to see people getting blitzed on the sands of South Beach, but it's technically illegal. City Attorney Jose Smith decided in 2010 that even the practice of hotels serving cocktails to their guests on the beach was illegal.

Well, after apparently realizing that everyone does it anyway, the city of Miami Beach might finally legalize some drinking on the beach.



According to The Miami Herald, the Neighborhood and Community Affairs Committee will consider whether to legalize "the sale, service, possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages within designated approved beach concession" areas. Now city staff is moving ahead with the proposal, and a City Commission approval would start a discussion with hotels, businesses and residents to decide on new rules.

Sadly, those new rules probably won't allow you to pack up a cooler full of Bud and wheel it on down to the beach. Your habit of grabbing a "Call a Cab" at Wet Willie's and bringing it back to your beach towel also won't be legalized, either. Because, of course not, this is Miami Beach. Half of the city's entire economy is based on finding new ways to get more money out of the wallets of people who just want to get drunk.

Alcohol vendors would need to be licensed (and would most likely be hotels), and drinkers could only consume in designated zones. The city might also demand fees or a cut of the sales.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the idea.

"Drunks on the beach are a terrific advertisement for our city, are they not? (Note that this is sarcasm...)," Jo Manning, a Miami Beach resident who is apparently unaware she is a resident of Miami Beach, to commissioners according to the Herald. "I see more and more tourists with children on our beach. Why expose this positive tourist element to rowdy, out of control drunks?"

Eh, from what we see, people who brings their kids to the beach are usually the ones most in need of a drink.

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