Spring break season is far from over.
College kids are traveling to Florida for its beaches and warm weather, but with that come many risks.
Hundreds of teens are partying off Miami’s Ocean Drive. This comes weeks after the city of Miami announced it was imposing curfews, bag checks, and raising fees to punish spring breakers for bad behavior.
Like most of the state, authorities in Miami Beach, Panama City, and Daytona are rolling out initiatives to stop tourists from trashing the place. On Wednesday, during a bill signing, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said this year, he’s also deploying heavy reinforcement.
“We’ve seen spring break come; we’ve seen a lot of people here, but you have not seen what you’ve seen in years past," said DeSantis.
The governor compared the state’s homeless problem to young adults coming in for the week and acting reckless. He says Florida’s streets have become too crowded with unwanted visitors. As a result, Gov. DeSantis is sending 140 state troopers to 17 cities across the state to “keep the area safe.”
“We have to govern this state and these communities with an eye toward what’s in the best interests of the law-abiding citizen.”
Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody also has something to say about spring breakers. She said Tuesday young adults are typically throwing parties, which opens the door for illegal drugs.
Moody is calling for officers at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department to stack up on naloxone, which is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. The initiative is part of her "One Pill Can Kill" campaign.
“Many equate spring break with drug use," said Moody at a presser in Daytona. "We’ve got to stop that because we now know that so many illegal substances contain a lethal dose of fentanyl.”
Some businesses are also shutting down early due to locally imposed curfews
In a 2019 interview with WFSU, Carol Dover the CEO of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, said the money made from tourists during spring break can help smaller towns grow.
“Tourism is still the economic engine," said Dover. "It doesn’t matter if you’re local or state. You need tourists in your community to continue to bring the sales tax revenue, the bed tax revenue.”
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