Story's Over? Miami Beach Club Dealt Major Blow in Liquor Curfew Battle

An appellate court ruling against Story Nightclub in its challenge to a local liquor curfew may spell the end for the Collins Avenue clubbing institution, where revelers had been partying since the heyday of acid house and early '90s raves.

A Miami-based three-judge panel rejected Story Nightclub's appeal in the case, keeping Miami Beach's 2 a.m. cutoff for liquor sales in place to the chagrin of the club's owner, Amnesia International, which raked in most of its money in the wee hours of the night when crowds were packed tight and alcohol sales peaked.

Story closed its doors to the public when the liquor curfew took effect in April. The club's social media and concert lineup, once stacked with global EDM headliners like Alesso and Steve Aoki, have been barren ever since. Amnesia International has indicated that the club is as good as gone if barred from serving booze deep into the night.

The Third District Court of Appeal handed down its decision on October 25, upholding the lower court's March decision that denied Story's request to halt the curfew, which applies to the city's South of Fifth Neighborhood.

"We find neither an abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision to deny the motion for temporary injunction, nor any error in its attendant legal conclusions," Judge Kevin Emas wrote for the appeals panel.

Story's attorneys had argued that Miami Beach commissioners crafted the liquor-sales ordinance with a specific purpose in mind — to pressure the club into closing.

The lawyers claimed the ordinance unfairly granted an exception to venues with a less than 100-person capacity, defeating the city's stated purpose of keeping the community's "residential" character. They claimed the measure was an unconstitutional infringement on Story's business.

"The city picked winners and one loser: Story. The ordinance's exceptions were, thus, the result of raw discriminatory action by the government," the brief argued.
"The arbitrary and capricious nature of the city's chosen exceptions is illustrated by the fact that the city commission was actively 'throwing exceptions' at the proverbial wall at [a] hearing — openly seeking to come up with a factual cutoff that would shut down Story while allowing other venues to survive," the brief argued.

Miami Beach countered that the ordinance did not single out Story, as it was drafted in a manner that applied to several other businesses, including Nikki Beach and Papi Steak.

The city cited residents' complaints about early morning noise, litter, and traffic caused by large crowds leaving Story Nightclub at closing time not long before dawn.

"Not only is the City’s differentiation between smaller and larger alcohol establishments based on a 100-person occupancy threshold and the resulting lower neighborhood impacts inherently rational...it is also supported by the testimony of numerous witnesses," the city argued in its brief.

Voters approved a measure in 2021 that authorized the city to institute a 2 a.m. liquor cutoff, a point the city's attorneys repeatedly recounted in court. A community association representing the South of Fifth neighborhood also passed a resolution favoring the ordinance.

Under the legal standard at play, the judges had to assess whether the city had a legitimate government interest in regulating late-night liquor sales and whether the ordinance was a rational means to advance that interest.

The appeals court's three-page ruling didn't delve too deeply into the parties' arguments, though it noted at one point, "There is competent substantial evidence to support the trial court’s order."

Miami Beach's appellate attorney, Edward Guedes, applauded the decision.

"We were delighted to see that the Third District Court of Appeal upheld Judge Reemberto Diaz’s order denying Amnesia a preliminary injunction," Guedes says.

Amnesia's case in the lower court is still pending, though the new ruling represents a major blow to any lingering hope of defeating the ordinance.

Guedes calls the case "effectively moribund at this point."

"The facts underlying Judge Diaz’s reasoning and findings aren’t going to change upon further consideration; the facts are what they are, and the courts have concluded that the City of Miami Beach had a legitimate, rational basis for taking corrective action to protect their residents in that neighborhood," Guedes tells New Times.

Story Nightclub's attorney, Charles Auslander, says that while the club has not yet signaled whether it will continue to fight the ordinance, it has the option of appealing to the Florida Supreme Court or trying to fend off a final judgment before Judge Diaz.

Auslander says his client had a solid argument that the ordinance was arbitrarily applied, in violation of Florida law.

"In terms of a gut punch to business, the ordinance turned out to be exclusively about Story Nightclub in our view," Auslander tells New Times.

The space that eventually became Story rose in the Miami Beach club scene under the Amnesia brand in the early 1990s. While operating under the Opium Garden moniker in the early 2000s, the club was known as a magnet for celebrities and glitzy parties. Hospitality industry guru David Grutman took it over in 2012 and partnered with Fontainebleau chief Jeffrey Soffer, after which point they transformed it into its final incarnation as an EDM super club.

The Commercial Observer reported that Soffer's Fontainebleau development company bought out the club property in March for $23 million, about a month before the venue closed.

Some of the club's last pre-closure performances included sets from Cash Cash, 2Chainz, and DJ Khaled. A 30-day stay of the liquor curfew, granted by Judge Diaz, allowed the club to cash in, perhaps for the last time, on spring break and Ultra Music Festival season.

The last major advertised event at the venue featured an April 8 performance by rapper French Montana and a cross-promotion for Happy Dad, an alcoholic seltzer marketed by the Canadian YouTube stars known as the Nelk Boys.