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Daytona tries to discourage underage spring breakers
©Associated Press
September 18, 2002
DAYTONA BEACH -- High school students are being told to either behave at spring break or stay home.
Daytona Beach Mayor Bud Asher wants the superintendents of seven Central Florida school districts to help get the message out.
"Let them know if they come over here, we're going to rigidly enforce the law," Asher said.
Crowds of high schoolers jammed beachside sidewalks and streets in March, joining with collegians, to create the worst spring break for drunkenness, lewd behavior and traffic jams since 1990, Asher said.
"Those kids came over here in hordes," Asher said. "I'm trying to make the kids understand we are not going to tolerate any underage drinking or lewd conduct."
Asher asked Volusia County schools superintendent Bill Hall to arrange a meeting with superintendents from Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk and Seminole counties. Hall wrote the six superintendents last month, urging them to talk with their high school principals to tell students that Daytona Beach police will be cracking down next March.
"I don't think any of us can predict how teenagers will act, but I hope hearing the message from their own high school principals and superintendent would have some effect," Hall said.
Because of unruly crowds at spring break this year, Daytona Beach canceled days off to put 10 more police officers on the streets, as well as requesting Volusia County sheriff's deputies and troopers from the Florida Highway Patrol.
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