Florida spring break clashes between property owners, party businesses

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — It didn’t take long to get the video. It never does.

Maybe someone had too much beer, forgot the beer funnel or just lost patience. Or maybe they wanted to catch up with the girls walking in their bikinis alongside the road.

But what is clear in the video is they didn’t have much more use for the road. Amid about two dozen scooters and motorcycles jammed together moving slowly along on a three-lane road, six revelers veered onto the shoulder, leaving only a foot or so between themselves, the cars and hordes of swimsuit-clad pedestrians. Someone started yelling. The margin for error was slim — too slim.

Thankfully, the collision wasn’t so bad this time — a mere bump among bros as the lead rider came to an abrupt stop. Besides being guilty of a traffic violation, several riders also ignored a new law requiring them to wear yellow safety vests.

Panama City Beach resident Darrell Sellers, who recorded the video and others, said scooters and motorcycles ride up and down the shoulder of the road all the time. Collisions are common, he said.

Residents in this beach town of 12,000 remain on edge about the spike in crime during spring break. Despite the surge for businesses, they say, rowdy revelers are lowering their property values and keeping the more lucrative family demographic at bay.

“Crime has a direct impact on property values. When people buy homes, two things they look at are schools and safety. Based on the crime ratings, we are not very desirable,” Mr. Sellers said. “Sirens were a constant this past weekend. I live here. I see it firsthand.”

The dark side of spring break

Drug use, assaults, burglaries, robberies, a stabbing, a shooting and two accidental deaths comprise just a sample of a week’s worth of law enforcement reports from roughly 100,000 revelers spending millions of dollars in this small, northwestern Florida town.

Criminal activity has skyrocketed since spring break began. According to The Omega Group, 597 crimes were reported near the beaches from March 10 through March 16.

It was a staggering 848 percent increase over the 63 reported crimes in that same area during a seven-day period a month earlier. Daytona Beach, another spring break destination, experienced a 45 percent increase in beachfront crime during the same time.

“I cannot do justice explaining about what happens during spring break,” Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said. “We have more [law enforcement] than we did last year, and I don’t think we still have enough.”

To better manage spring break, the sheriff’s office is working with the Panama City Beach Police and the Florida Highway Patrol.

When other spring break destinations, such as Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach, banned alcohol on their beaches, the crime rate dropped drastically, but so did the number of cash-carrying spring breakers.

Fort Lauderdale, birthplace of the wet T-shirt contest, rebranded itself by building stores and hotels aimed at attracting families. The switch worked, but Daytona hasn’t fared as well.

Bad for business?

Social media sites have been buzzing with explicit images and videos of spring breakers having sex in public at Panama City Beach.

Lynda Killingsworth said scenes like these, combined with other crimes and loud music, prompted her to put her condominium up for sale — but she can’t find any buyers.

“Who wants to buy an absolutely gorgeous apartment in the middle of the Triangle?” asked Ms. Killingsworth, who lives next door to a popular beach club.

The Triangle, on the east end of the city, is roughly 3 miles of beachfront clubs, condominiums, restaurants and stores that draw the biggest crowds of spring breakers.

Within these crowds, however, is a growing number of young people who are not in college.

Known as the 100-milers, these travelers usually sleep in their cars and, according to law enforcement, have been known to prey on unsuspecting college students.

“You can’t blame the 100-milers with the lewd, disrespectful, out of control, drunken college spring breakers that come to Panama City Beach for solely one purpose — to party,” Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen wrote.

Bay County Commissioner Mike Thomas and Sheriff McKeithen said the moral values of young people have changed and led to more trouble on the beach.

“You can pull it up online and look at the groups that are in some of these clubs. I’m not a prude. I grew up here, raised three boys. I know what happens. But there’s no respect anymore,” said Mr. Thomas. “All over the United States, people are misbehaving more than they were.”

Mr. Thomas, who has owned businesses on the beach for decades, said the unruly and unlawful behavior during spring break is scaring off families.

“A lot of families leave for three weeks and don’t come down here because of what’s happening on the other end of the beach,” he said. “It’s just around a few clubs.”

Club owners push back

Club La Vela, with a capacity of 7,000, bills itself as the largest nightclub in the nation. Owner Patrick Pfeffer said businesses cannot control what goes on outside their walls.

Mr. Pfeffer hired extra security and remodeled his club so that loud music is projected more toward the Gulf of Mexico than his neighbors. He said he has stopped hosting wet T-shirt and banana-eating contests.

Since he has had to stop selling alcohol this season two hours earlier, at 2 a.m., drink sales have dropped about 40 percent, Mr. Pfeffer said.

“We need to stop the moral crusaders who want to think for everyone else, and who think just because they don’t like something, nobody else is supposed to like it either,” Mr. Pfeffer said.

Sparky Sparkman, who owns Spinnakers Beach Club next door to Club La Vela, said clubs have been criticized unfairly.

“As a destination, we are not responsible for poor parenting and a morals revolution gone awry,” Mr. Sparkman wrote in a letter posted on PCBeachNoise.com.

“This situation is not specific to Panama City Beach! We must constantly look for and focus on solutions and realize that [focusing] on the problems does not get the job done.”

Bill Buskell, owner of restaurant and nightclub Pineapple Willy’s, chastised City Council members for not marketing enough to spring breakers who are at least 21 years old.

“If you continue driving business to 18-, 19-year-olds, this place is going to become a hellhole,” Mr. Buskell said. “You’re not going to get any decent people wanting to come here and live.”

Property value comparison

According to the Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse, based at the University of Florida, the median sales price for a single-family home in Bay County last year was $175,000, or $4,000 less than 2013. The condominium price for 2014 was $195,000, unchanged from 2013.

“It’s been hectic,” Panama City Beach Mayor Gayle Oberst said about this year’s spring break. “The first two weeks were good. Maybe a few hiccups, but really pretty good.”

Panama City lawyer Wes Pittman, who is representing concerned condominium owners on the beach, vehemently disagrees.

He said Ms. Oberst and City Council members are heavily influenced by businesses that benefit from the 45-day rite of passage.

“This woman is poison to Bay County and its values,” Mr. Pittman said. “And what’s happening at the beach is that the failure of the City Council there to enact reasonable ordinances over the years to control this thing to the point of where it’s gotten now has driven our property values of the county downwards.”

Ms. Oberst laughed at Mr. Pittman’s comments.

“I wouldn’t put a lot of value in his opinion,” Ms. Oberst said. “I’ve not met Mr. Pittman personally. He does not live in our city. In any event, he’s welcome to his opinion.”

Asked whether she has accepted campaign donations from businesses that benefit from spring break, Ms. Oberst responded: “Well, I’d have to go back and look. The last time I ran was in 2012. Most businesses contribute to the campaigns.”

Disappearance

In addition to the drinking and petty crime, spring break may also be a place to literally disappear.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office is now looking for a 15-year-old girl who was reported missing from Tallahassee on March 6. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office contacted Bay County and reported that Sidney Fuller may be in Panama City Beach. Ms. Fuller is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 110 lbs. and has brown hair and brown eyes.  

 The sheriff is also looking for a girl that appeared naked in an online photo that was taken recently during spring break. In the photo the girl is wearing red sunglasses and stands about chest-high to one of several men shown standing around her. The photo was uploaded to Twitter on March 11. Photos that showed the girl dancing naked along the Gulf of Mexico have since been removed.  

Law enforcement has not confirmed if the two cases are related. Anyone with information is asked to call the Bay County Sheriff’s Office at 850-747-4700 or CrimeStoppers at 850-785-TIPS.