MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — From rooftop bars and rope lines to gridlocked streets and sidewalks, Ocean Drive, the once-idyllic neon heartbeat of South Beach, can trample the senses on most weekends.

Tourists sip Technicolor cocktails from fishbowl-size glasses. High-decibel music throbs into the night as people amble along in the glow of stadium-style lights. A weed dealer in the shadows peddles “Purple Haze” for $25 as a near-toothless older man chases women with a seven-foot Burmese python draped around his neck. Police officers are everywhere, scanning the action.

“It has just gotten to the point where the place has become a 24-hour carnival-like crime-ridden circus, where public safety is no longer ensured,” said Mitch Novick, who owns the Sherbrooke Hotel around the corner on Collins Avenue and has been in the area since 1988, when the cafes here could be counted on one hand. “I’m witnessing the blighting of my neighborhood, which was once paradise.”

After years of complaints from residents and a steady stream of online criticism from tourists, the City of Miami Beach moved recently to try to tame the epicenter of the mayhem on Ocean Drive, the former gleaming gem of the area’s Art Deco 1990s revival. It was the latest test for a city that has long grappled with how to balance the desires of raucous partygoers with the demands of more sedate visiting families and fed-up residents, many of them wealthy.