College students planning to head to popular spring break destination Miami Beach's sunny shores and beachtown bars might want to think again, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared on Thursday.
At a Miami Beach press conference, he announced the revitalization of the 2024 Miami Beach spring break crackdown, which included a heavy police presence, curfew, and a no-nonsense attitude toward unruly spring breakers—inspired by two fatal shootings during the March break in 2023.
"We're back here today on the cusp of spring break 2025, saying we're gonna do it well again," DeSantis said, discussing the "smooth success" enjoyed by Miamians during last year's tightened laws. "We owe it to the people that live here, we owe it to the people that visit here to make sure that this is orderly and safe for everybody involved."
"We can't have things just descend into madness and mayhem and chaos," DeSantis added.
The Florida Highway Patrol began to deploy resources statewide in late February to various law enforcement agencies and will continue to do so until April, the governor said. This week alone, 12 local agencies have requested assistance, and more than 100 troopers are set to be deployed. Drones, Bearcats, and canine units are on standby.
During the 2024 spring break, DeSantis noted that 140 state troopers were deployed for "spring break assistance" statewide, 50 of which were sent to Miami Beach. This included DUI checkpoints, bag searches, and beach closures. During that time, the island city made up 44% of felony arrests statewide, 36% of DUIs, 33% of misdemeanor arrests, 29% of moving citations, and 5% of commercial motor vehicle citations.
Miamians viewed the 2024 experiment positively, though three South Beach nightclubs tried—and failed—to sue the city to overturn the midnight curfew. Mayor Steven Meiner remarked that hotels were at a higher capacity than they had been the year prior.
"Last year’s spring break was a success on any level you measure it,” Meiner said earlier this week. “We had zero fatalities, zero shootings, zero stampedes. The majority of our businesses did very well and actually thanked us for the measures we took.”
Miami Beach wasn't the first city to institute a spring break crackdown.
Party destination Panama City Beach in the panhandle instituted a 2016 ban on alcohol at the beach after a house party shooting left seven people wounded. The measure was successful in decreasing spring break crime, but the ban faded away after local officials diverted more attention to a 2018 hurricane—and later, Covid lockdowns—than public drunkenness.
So in 2023, Panama City Beach led a large-scale spring break crackdown, likely contributing to the city's 44% reduction in crime.
