Business: Ebb Tide at Miami Beach

(4 of 4)

It is ironic, therefore, that the hotelmen are now looking to legalized gambling for their salvation. Sanford Weiner, the publicist who helped push through the referendum in New Jersey that will bring craps and slot machines to Atlantic City, has been retained to head the effort, even though Governor Reubin Askew has vowed to fight such an idea. "Gambling would change our image overnight," says Beach Tourist Chief Cohen. "It would combat the feeling that there's nothing to do here." Agrees Joel Gray, executive vice president of the Doral Hotel: "Gambling can return Miami Beach to a point of prime destination." In other words, Gray thinks casinos will lure many more travelers. But these optimists have forgotten the need for fresh capital. Says Morton Ehrlich, senior vice president for planning of Eastern Air Lines: "You don't put a casino in the basement of a hotel that's falling down." And Miami Beach boosters are having great difficulty raising new money these days. Says one hotelkeeper: "We are ready to build a new hotel, but we can't get the money. There is too much negativism. The bankers are gun-shy."

The Army Corps of Engineers is restoring the beach. There is talk of building a model of Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens on Watson Island, which is connected to the Beach and the mainland by one of four causeways. Another proposal is to renew South Beach, at a cost of $500 million. The area now attracts winos and beach bums to its sleazy hotels and littered alleys. Despite everything, Miami Beach still has the assets of pleasant climate and huge convention facilities, while businessmen have appealed for $100 million in Government guarantees and outright loans to refurbish and expand the big hotels. And Beach officials are trying to rectify the reputation of resort employees for surliness to tourists. The officials have held special sessions with cab drivers and hotel workers to coach them in etiquette, and passed out buttons to employees reading: BUTTER 'EM UP.