College students are creating problems for cities and coastal towns that are dependent on tourism. 2.6 million Americans are expected to fly each day in March and April. Tourist towns dread these arrivals. This year, after 2 deadly shootings in Miami, the Mayor called for an emergency midnight curfew and no sales of takeaway liquor after 6 pm in Miami. The problem is that Spring Breakers are spending no money. They go to the cheapest accommodations and eat as cheap as possible to save money for booze.
With these Spring Breakers comes some other non-college partiers (townies, as OWU likes to call it) who commit the most serious crimes in these parties. Over half of the people arrested in last year's Miami spring break were locals of Miami-Dade County. Although Miami would like to just boot the college kids, they cannot set limits because it is unfair to the businesses like bars and hotels and people who own Airbnbs.
Although most of Florida would rather not have spring breakers, it is not like this everywhere. South Padre Island in Texas actually spent over $15,000 this year on college campuses to get students to travel there and spend their parents' money on spring break.
3 comments:
Hello Elliot,
I always knew there were issues that arose from spring breakers, but I never knew the extent of them. It is very concerning to hear that townhouses are committing crimes amongst and against these college kids. With that being said I am intrigued about what the fix to this problem will be. It's not like the government can tell townies to stay out of the area they live. But I do think the curfew and no alcohol sale past 6pm is a good start. Luckily, spring break only happens once a year.
Overall, well done.
While there the crimes that have been committed are not to be taken lightly, the lack of spending by spring breakers is likely also a major concern for these spring break destinations such as Miami. I'm sure some of these destinations rely these tourists as a source of revenue.
This is a huge issue for areas like Miami, New Orleans, and other areas that attract massive amounts college students during spring break. Many of these areas face the same issues every year with shootings, thefts, and other crimes mainly occurring from the residents of that area and not the visiting college students. If the mayor of Miami tries to keep out the college kids Miami could very easily be replaced with another beach area that accepts the college students leaving the business owners in Miami to suffer greatly.
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