As crimes at hotels surge, Miami Springs weighs hiring more cops
Miami Springs city leaders have proposed hiring more police officers due to a surge in crimes from area hotels.
“Our number one area of issues and problems is the hotels,” Miami Springs Police Chief Armando Guzman said at the May 5 meeting. “Last time I checked, 40 percent of our calls for uniformed patrol are from the hotels, and 50 percent of our investigations are from the hotels.”
Guzman did not specify which hotels had called, nor did he give a time period for the calls, and a public records request seeking more details is under review by the City Clerk’s office.
Each officer would cost taxpayers $100,000, Guzman said, and this includes salary, benefits, and training. Guzman lobbied for one additional officer per shift, or three extra officers. The department currently has 45 officers.
Miami Springs is a three-square-mile bedroom community, population 14,000, that sits north of Miami International Airport.
“I think this whole thing started when we annexed the Abraham Tract,” said Councilman Bob Best. “And after that there was a plethora of hotels.”
In 2013, the Miami Springs Mayor and City Council riled locals when they approved an ordinance permitting a red-light district across from the airport. This zone, known as the Abraham Tract, has two hotels that serve as emergency homeless shelters, a 24-hour adult bookstore, and is near an hourly “love” motel.
At the time, city officials rallied for more hotels and pledged that the measure would result in lower property-tax rates. The historic small town, founded in 1926 by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis, now has 21 hotels.
Rapid hotel expansion has resulted in more crime in the city’s hotel district that includes shootings, rapes, and drug dealing. In 2019, a woman with the word “whore” tattooed on her arm beat a man on the head with “an unknown object” during a hotel robbery, police said. During a jailhouse search, officers found five Rolex watches inside her vagina.
Last year, the Runway Inn, at 656 East Dr. was raided and closed in order “to end the nuisance caused by prolonged criminal activity on the property,” police said. In a 70-page complaint filed last year in county court, Miami Springs cited “an increase of over 300 percent in police calls.”
As for taxes, Miami Springs set its property-tax rate at 7.3300 for every $1,000 of taxable home value, last fall, one of the highest in the county.
Officials said that property taxes could be lowered if the city annex’s a swath of land “west of the FEC tracks” located between TGK prison and an adult nightclub. The area is part of the airport business district and would add more hotels to the city’s roster.
However, prior annexation attempts by Miami Springs for this land has been unsuccessful.
In its 2017 failed annexation attempt, Miami Springs sought to annex an area that roughly runs from Northwest 69th Avenue west to the Palmetto Expressway, and from State Road 934 (Hialeah Expressway) south to Northwest 36th Street. The area sought does not include property owned by Florida East Coast Railway.
“We voted for it twice, our community wants it, we’ve made an agreement with other cities as to how these several unincorporated tracts of land that belong to Miami-Dade County, how they would be dispersed,” Mayor Maria Mitchell said.
The city’s application to Miami-Dade County must first pass muster with the Planning Advisory Board, and then go before the county commission for a vote, which may take place as soon as this fall, officials said.
With growth on the horizon, a case was also made for building a new police station and City Hall, at an estimated cost of “$10 - $15 million.” The complex would also house a county fire station, officials said.
“This project would involve selection and acquisition of a new location and once the new facility is constructed the current City Hall can be sold and proceeds used to offset cost of new building,” City Manager William Alonso said. “This project would be funded via a long-term bank note.”
The public is invited to sound off on these issues at the next Miami Springs City Council meeting at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 24, at City Hall, 201 Westward Dr.
