As mid-March approached, colleges and coastal cities braced for the inevitable: swarms of students just out of Zoom school looking for beer kegs in a global pandemic.
In Florida, Palm Beach extended its curfew from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. to deter potential Spring Breakers. In Texas, a district judge reminded residents of last year when beer-chugging kids sparked several superspreader events. The University of California Davis even offered to pay students to stay at home, although not many – their “Spring Break Grants,” which students were required to apply for, up to a maximum of $ 75 gift cards to local businesses.
But the warnings haven’t stopped crowds from swarming popular Spring Break destinations, from Miami to South Padre Island to Panama City.
“We’re packed from the moment we open to the moment we close,” Sydney, the manager of Bacon Bitch breakfast cafe in Miami Beach, told The Daily Beast Saturday. The Spring Break hotspot is located in the state with the highest number of cases of the new UK COVID variant in the country. She estimates that the restaurant, with a seating capacity of about 175, has been serving ‘thousands a day’ since the beginning of March.
Other Miami Beach businesses are also packed – eight restaurants and clubs along bustling Ocean Ave were too busy on Saturday to speak on the phone. A spokesman for Yardbird Southern Table and Bar told The Daily Beast that they had had a “massive influx of business” over the past two weeks as a result of several spring vacations. At The Standard, a luxury hotel in the Biscayne Bay area of Miami Beach, a representative said their rooms were fully booked every weekend this month.
Among the largely maskless crowds on South Beach this week, an A&M junior from Alabama told the Miami Herald: “Grandma shouldn’t be here anyway. It’s too many people. “
Miami Beach Police, which have stepped up their Spring Break crackdowns in recent years, even using riot gear to intimidate partygoers, have dealt with extreme violence, many claiming to have historically targeted black tourists.
On Friday evenings the MBPD tweeted that they were dealing with “very large crowds,” noting that they had detained several people and were “forced to use pepper balls” on civilians. One video showed partygoers twerking in a police car. Another disturbing video showed a huge crowd dispersed as half a dozen police officers descended on a single man, lifted his body into the air and knocked it to the ground.
The Miami Dade branch of the NAACP, which shared the video on Instagram, last year called for the resignation of the Miami Beach police chief after several incidents of police brutality on Black Spring Breakers. (Miami and Miami Beach police departments have not responded to requests for comment).
On social media, local event planners have rolled out weeks of events to cater to tourists. The Instagram page @ SpringBreakMiami2021 shared a poster Saturday morning for a “Freaknik Pool Party” at a “Secret Mansion Location” that night. The afterparty, also hosted in a secret club, had the theme ‘Hennything Goes’.
Another Instagram page invited guests to a pool party with a white dress called ‘Cocaina’, promising mermaids, fire dancers, hookah and another mansion. The invitations did not mention masks, COVID-19, or social detachment. (Neither page responded to requests for comment).
Some event pages are more hidden in their announcements. The administrator of an events page in another Florida city told The Daily Beast that they had been advised not to talk about the site. “The company is hot on my heels,” the clerk wrote. ‘They don’t even want me to post[s]
The wave of Spring Breakers was helped by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said in his State of the State address in early March that he was welcoming visitors to Florida, hoping to boost the local economy. DeSantis also made it more difficult for municipalities to enforce their own rules by signing an executive order to lift all fines for COVID-19 violations.
Vaccinations in the state have risen steadily to about 14 percent of the population since last week. But even after recent updates to their travel guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still discourages unnecessary travel.
“We are very concerned that there will be a gathering of people here,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told CNN last week, “and a real problem in the aftermath.”
On South Padre Island, off the southeast coast of Texas, a beach bar called Clayton’s shared a now-viral video of maskless attendees playing beer pong huddled in circles. The owner, Clayton Brashear, told local KVEO-TV that he welcomed the crowds. “For Spring Break, we really decided at the last minute that we’re going to open up, DJs, concerts, everything,” he said.
Brashear has encouraged guests to wear masks, he said, but he is not enforcing it. Texas government Greg Abbott, who has repeatedly tried to reopen the state during the pandemic, dropped the state’s mask mandate on March 10. Just days earlier, on March 2, the state registered a test positivity rate of more than 12 percent – three times the national average.
The bar also has a beach stage called Clayton’s Spring Break Beach Stage, and works with a Spring Break website to offer deals on events that take place daily. (Neither Clayton’s nor the website have responded to requests for comment).
“With Panama City to Gulf Shores banning beach drinking in March and because it’s a spring break against college, South Padre Island is BOOMING,” the website says, which charges $ 65 for a “Party Package Wristband.”
Van Clayton’s adds, “There’s no question that this is the # 1 largest spring break daytime party spot on South Padre Island.”