Spring Break mayhem being brought under control with Miami's overnight booze ban
dailystar.co.ukSpring Break mayhem seems to be under control after the authorities implemented an overnight booze ban. Liquor stores and supermarkets have been banned from selling alcohol from 6pm to 6am in a last-ditch attempt to bring an end to the chaos that has blighted the holiday.
The annual college students’ party, which draws as many as 600,000 young people to Florida from all over the US, has taken an increasingly ugly turn.Five people were wounded in two shootings last weekend, with police saying officers are “exhausted” by the chaos with three weekends still left to go.In recent years a 32-bed mobile hospital has been set up near the beach to treat revellers who have overdone it with the festivities and the Spring Break traditions of drinking, drug abuse and fighting.
One local described the atmosphere in the city as “like a zoo on steroids”.“Our city is past its end point,” said the mayor of Miami Beach, Dan Gelber, at a press conference. “We can’t endure this any more, we simply can’t.“This isn’t your father’s, your mother’s spring break. "This is something totally different.
We don’t ask for spring break. We don’t promote it, we don’t encourage it, we just endure it, and frankly it’s not something we want to endure."The curfew covering the city’s South Beach neighbourhood began at midnight yesterday (March 24) and is set to last until Monday morning.The festival began as a fairly modest affair in Fort Lauderdale in the 1930s, but by the late 50s it had already become synonymous with heavy drinking.
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