FYI Miami: February 3, 2022

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

CASHLESS RETAIL BAN: Legislation to bar retailers from rejecting cash payments for goods or services is headed to a committee and then final action by county commissioners after they adopted it on first reading Tuesday. The ordinance by Sen. René Garcia has been in the works since May 2021, when commissioners urged Congress to prohibit retailers from refusing cash payments and directing the county mayor to report on the feasibility of prohibiting retail businesses in the county from rejecting cash. “If the board chooses to enact such a policy, it would ensure equal access to goods and services for all visitors to, and the residents of, Miami-Dade County,” says the report from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Violation of the ordinance would result in civil penalties ranging from $100 to $1,000.

305, 786 AND ???: The state Public Service Commission on Tuesday approved moving forward with an additional area code in Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys, as the 305 and 786 area codes are expected to run out of numbers. The new area code will cover the same territory as the 305 and 786 area codes and will be used for new phone customers or people adding lines. Current customers will keep their numbers. The 305 and 786 area codes are expected to run out of numbers in early 2024 as South Florida continues growing and as cell phones and other technology require new numbers.

TRANSIT UP, BUT DOWN: Miami-Dade County’s public transit system added more than 20% to its rider total in November compared with November 2020, but that still left riders down by more than a third from three years earlier, a total loss in those three years of more than 2.3 million trips in November alone. Figures from the county show that Metrobus gained more than 15% in riders in November from the prior November, Metrorail gained more than 21% and the totally free Metromover gained a staggering 80% in the year. Yet even with Metromover’s gain to nearly 419,000 riders in the month, it was still down 316,000 November riders from three years earlier, a 43% drop. 

CONNECT2: This recently launched multi-year program provides sanitary sewers to Miami-Dade residents with septic tanks. With about 120,000 septic tank systems still used in Miami-Dade, 9,000 of them are vulnerable to compromise or failure under current groundwater conditions, a press note says. With sea levels rising, this number is expected to grow to about 13,500 by 2040. As a result, the Water and Sewer Department received grants from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to be used in the Little River Adaptation Action Area that begins along Northeast 87th Street and Bayshore Drive and will connect 40 residential parcels in the first phase. The second phase starts in March 2023, when 330 properties in the Larchmont community will start retiring septic tanks and connecting to newly constructed county sewer infrastructure.