‘We can’t endure this anymore’: Miami Beach declares state of emergency over spring break violence

City of Miami Beach officials have declared a state of emergency as they struggle to stop spring break chaos.

As part of the measures, a curfew will be in place for the South Beach area from midnight until 6am on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, according to the Miami Herald, with another curfew expected to be brought in the following weekend.

During these times, only residents, visitors to the city with hotel reservations, or those with businesses in the area will be allowed to enter.

Miami is popular with partying college students, thousands of whom gather annually during the spring break.

But excessive drinking and violence resulted in more than 1,000 arrests last March, the first time the city imposed an 8pm curfew.

In the last few days, five people have been injured in two shootings and mayor Dan Gelber said about 100 guns had been seized over the past four weeks, including 37 in the last three days.

Mr Gelber said: “We can’t endure this anymore – we just simply can’t.

“This isn’t your father or your mother’s spring break. This is something wholly different.”

Mr Gelber said several police officers had been injured in recent weeks while trying to control crowds, and having almost 400 police officers deployed last weekend was not enough to prevent the two shootings.

Three of the shooting victims were injured early on Sunday while on a street crowded with spring breakers.

Two of them were taken to hospital, while another hospital reported a third person arriving later with a gunshot wound.

All are expected to survive, as are two young women found with gunshot wounds in the early hours of Monday.

Mr Gelber said: “We just simply cannot have people come to our city and have to worry about being shot.

“That’s not a way a city can operate.”