Panama City Beach Police cracking down on spring break antics

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - It’s all fun and games until someone breaks the rules. Panama City Beach Police are cracking down on spring breakers.

“Spring break this year has gone how we expected it to first couple of weeks in March,” Panama City Beach Police Chief J.R. Talamantez said.

They expected to make lots of arrests and so far they have.

“We have had couple of people here and there who want to test the limits and our ability to enforce spring break and currently they’re realizing as they sit in the bay county jail that we can handle business,” Talamantez said.

The beach is packed with many here on spring break, and PCBPD officials say they want everyone to have a good time but stay safe doing so.

Most of the activity is typical spring break antics, but sometimes it crosses the line.

“What we are seeing now is crime associated with drunken behavior caused by college students,” Talamantez said.

Behavior police say will turn a fun time into a long-lasting problem.

“Unfortunately going home with criminal record,” Talamantez said.

So far, they’ve already made hundreds of arrests.

“For adults we’ve arrested over 200 people for spring break since the beginning of march. for a wide variety of things from drinking on the beach to d-u-i’-s to possession of narcotics,” Talamantez said.

About fifty citations so far have been written for drinking on the sandy beach, which is illegal during the month of March. The ordinance was created to control spring break chaos.

“We’ve given a lot more warnings than citations,” Talamantez said. “And the only way we can enjoy that is if everybody follows the law and keeps a very family friendly destination.”

Police say this upcoming weekend they are expecting a lot of people on the beaches as we approach the peak weekends for spring break.