USA Today reported Sunday that Florida remains the go-to Spring Break destination for American students, and for good reason. South Florida residents live in a perennial tropical paradise, which explains why so many people from New York and New Jersey tend to retire — read: drive badly and complain about the lack of good pizza — there. And, of course, Panama City Beach in the panhandle remains a popular Spring Break destination, famous for its cheap accommodations, wild beach parties and inevitable drunken falling-off-balconies incidents.
This year, as record cold temperatures in the Northeast have college students looking to Florida for a warm escape, Florida tourism experts are predicting 2014 to be a record-breaking year for Spring Breaks spent in the Sunshine State.
“Though Florida’s spring break hot spots evolve, with some cities dropping off students’ radar and others popping back on, statewide tourism continues to grow during January, February and March,” USA Today writer Rick Neale reported. “Out-of-state visitors during those months have increased from 19.4 million in 2000 to an all-time high of 26.3 million last year, Visit Florida data shows. That’s a 36 percent jump.”
The history of Spring Break in Florida is nothing if not political.
While Panama City Beach, Cocoa Beach and the Orlando area are currently among the biggest hot spots for in- and out-of-state students, according to USA Today, it hasn’t always been that way. Fort Lauderdale — nicknamed “Ft. Liquordale” back in its Spring Break heyday of the 1970s — had enough of the hordes of students wreaking havoc on the city. According to TIME, toward the end of the ‘80s, a combination of stricter public-drinking laws and hotel-occupancy standards limiting college students from cramming large groups into single rooms drove Spring Breakers to other areas of the state.
Last year, the Walton Sun reported, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office deputies issued 1,098 Notice to Appears — mostly for underage drinking. Walton is located just outside Panama City in the Bay area. This year already a Texas student has gone missing in Panama City.
Although popular Spring-Break destination cities increase law enforcement and make noises about aggressively cracking down on college students’ bad behavior, cities such as Daytona Beach, Orlando and Panama City are in a bind: Though students cause damage to both the facilities and reputations of the cities they clamor to, those city officials aren’t likely to attempt a Fort Lauderdale-style exorcism of Spring Breakers.
Indeed, sleepy beach towns like Panama City rely on the tourism dollars that college students bring every year from January to March.
Unfortunately for lovers of peace, quiet and pristine beaches, Spring Breakers will flock to Florida regardless of one or two cities’ efforts to push them away.
We just have a little advice for those out-of-state Florida newbies: wear sunscreen, and stay away from balconies.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 3/10/2014 under the headline "Spring Break: Great for economy, not for state image"]
