Miami-Dade lifts COVID-19 restrictions on boats, locker rooms, toothpicks and more

Miami-Dade County has dropped its complex emergency rule book on COVID-19 and replaced it with general regulations on masks and spacing, leaving only a few restrictions in place targeting specific industries or leisure activities.

A new order from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava that took effect 6 p.m. Tuesday cancels eight previous orders implemented last year by her predecessor, Carlos Gimenez. That includes canceling the entire “New Normal” rule book, a 197-page manual released in May that laid out COVID emergency requirements for dozens of industries, as well as recommended best practices for keeping customers and employees safe.

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Among the former rules quashed: a ban on boats rafting up with each other; a requirement that gym locker rooms be closed; prohibitions on water stations at golf courses; and a string of restaurant regulations outlawing salad bars, toothpick dispensers, and loud music.

Also gone: specific rules requiring 10 feet between customers and performers, a regulation designed to ban lap dances at strip clubs.

Levine Cava’s new order restates the county’s mask requirement for almost all public spaces, with existing exceptions for religious institutions, hotel rooms, private automobiles and other circumstances. It also requires businesses to provide hand sanitizer for employees and customers, and mandates they make “reasonable efforts” to maintain social distancing.

What are Miami-Dade’s new COVID restaurant rules?

The order includes more specific mandates for spacing in restaurants, allowing dining rooms to operate at 100% capacity only if tables are placed six feet apart. That restates an existing county emergency rule, but drops the prior caps on how many unrelated people could sit at a table.

“It’s a significant change,” said Julio Barrero, owner of the Trigo Cafe in Hialeah.

He said business has been picking up at Trigo, a sign to Barrero that customers are feeling more confident at the restaurant’s ability to maintain reasonable precautions against COVID spread.

Trigo staff disinfect tables after each use, and the restaurant removed two of its 10 tables to increase space between diners. Barrero bought plastic barriers to separate his eight tables in March 2020, a feature never required by government restrictions but which he said “gave a sense of security to the customers.”

Restaurants across Miami-Dade still face mandatory closure times at midnight, the result of a curfew that’s been in place since July. Levine Cava announced Monday that the curfew will end this week, and restrictions lifted at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, April 12.

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Outside of restaurant capacity restrictions, the Levine Cava order maintains one industry-specific rule. Across Miami-Dade, short-term vacation rentals still have capacity caps at between four and 10 people, depending on the property’s size.

The order restates existing rules limiting Airbnb and other short-term rentals to two people for each bedroom on a property, plus an additional two people; maxing out at 10 occupants, no matter the size.

The rules for short-term rentals — a source of friction during the COVID-19 pandemic for their popularity with party hosts while nightclubs were shut down or restricted — were the exception in the Levine Cava order, which mostly dispatched with existing rules.

What are the COVID boating rules in Miami-Dade?

That included eliminating every rule specific to boats in Miami-Dade. For more than a year, Miami-Dade prohibited boats from rafting up or anchoring within 50 feet of each other. The county imposed capacity restrictions on private boats based on size, barred multiple people using the same fish-cleaning station at the same time and outlawed vessels from beaching on sandbars.

Her order also eliminates detailed regulations on team sports and athletic facilities. A rule that was still on the books through the New Normal regulations barred the use of locker rooms at gyms.

An order on recreational activities revised by Gimenez in October required golf courses to remove water stations from courses and lock down self-service machines for washing golf balls. The order also barred use of bleachers for sporting events at city and county parks and required cleaning attendants to sanitize every park bathroom at least once every two hours.

Rachel Johnson, communications director for Levine Cava, on Tuesday provided a list of four orders that remain in effect, along with the new umbrella COVID order the mayor announced Monday and the curfew order that’s set to end early Monday morning.

Three of the remaining orders govern reporting requirements for hospitals and vaccine providers as it relates to COVID cases and vaccine administration. The fourth is an order first issued in March 2020 that allowed Miami-Dade to suspend its normal building inspection and permitting services, requiring much of the work to continue online.

Levine Cava’s order includes a new document that is a condensed version of the “New Normal” protocols. Now called the “COVID Safety Guidelines,” the 20-page document includes more detailed prescriptions for how businesses should operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. But unlike the prior New Normal iteration, this one only includes suggestions and does not carry the force of law.

“The guidelines are just guidelines [with] specific recommendations to help residents and businesses stay safe,” Johnson said. “What is required is what’s laid out in the order.”

Miami Herald staff writer Michelle Marchante contributed to this report.

This article was updated to correct the title of the new list of COVID-19 guidelines that replaces the former “New Normal” handbook.