‘They were all ramped up’: Braced for partiers from Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale sees ‘very calm’ Spring Break

Stephanie Slobodonik had prepared herself for chaos: drunk, post-bar Spring Break crowds, no longer welcome in Miami Beach, overwhelming The Floridian, the iconic 24-hour diner where she works as a server. At the very least, she surmised, business would be booming.

But that simply didn’t happen this year, she said. The diner saw only a slight uptick in business compared to other months. The beach outside appeared full, but not chaotic. Even the motorcycle cops who stopped in for food were saying, “It’s not too bad.”

“They were all ramped up,” she said. “Expecting the worst. It did not happen.”

Following Miami Beach’s decision to “break up” with Spring Break this year, Fort Lauderdale had braced itself for an influx of rowdy partiers. And while officials said they dealt with greater-than-normal crowds, others said the season seemed muted compared to their expectations. Most could agree that the month of March passed with surprising tranquility. Bars and restaurants had few complaints. The beaches looked full, but not overflowing. And while police made more arrests, almost all of the perpetrators were local.

Triple the arrests, but almost all local

A man from Miami was arrested after police say he stole three cellphones at Sway Nightclub, then hid them in his underwear.

An intoxicated Spring Breaker was forcibly detained and pepper-sprayed by police at Rock Bar after refusing to leave the property.

A Pompano Beach man was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer after he hit four Fort Lauderdale police officers with water balloons he was throwing from his car.

Because he told officers he meant to target Spring Breakers, it was considered a spring break-related arrest.

Fort Lauderdale Police arrested 24 people in “spring break-related” incidents between March 1 and March 29, almost quadruple last year’s number, according to a news release. But only four of those arrested were actually spring breakers, with three alleged cellphone thieves from Miami and 16 from Broward. Over Spring Break 2023, police made only seven arrests, and only one of those arrested was a Spring Breaker.

Spokesperson Casey Liening said it’s typical for the majority of arrests to be locals. An arrest that is “Spring Break-related” only means that the person was arrested by a police officer specifically hired for Spring Break, she said.

Spring Breakers have more motivation to stay out of trouble because they’re still in college, Chief Bill Schultz said at a news conference Thursday. The police department sent letters to college deans this year, telling them they welcome their students but only if they do not to get into trouble.

Schultz called the season an “overwhelming success.”

There were “definitely more people in attendance” from a wider array of colleges, Schultz said, but he “certainly would not say more chaos.”

Police issued 3,883 traffic citations over the season. A DUI checkpoint led to 94 citations and 20 cars towed.

And there was one “major incident,” Schultz said: a West Point cadet died by drowning after a night out.

‘They’re still in Miami’

Joining the celebration of this year’s success was Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, who said in a social media statement Monday that the season was “one of the best in Fort Lauderdale’s history.”

“We experienced a record number of visitors to our shores, which made for historic highs in hotel occupancies and small-business engagement,” he said. “Public safety and the cleanliness of our beaches were the top priority during the season.”

But the surge in visitors wasn’t felt everywhere.

“I’d go to the beach and during Spring Break, it was less busy than it was Easter Weekend,” Slobodonik said. “I was like, ‘Where is everybody?'”

While the sheer number of Spring Breakers each day may have felt smaller, the season also lasted longer due to how students’ breaks were timed this year, said City Manager Greg Chavarria.

“It wasn’t as concentrated, but it was just a longer event,” he said.

Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of Visit Lauderdale, did not have tourism numbers for March but said in an email that the season was “very calm.”

“We do not have any data on the spring season,” she said. “It appears that it was a very calm and well-behaved crowd with no major incidents reported by the City of Fort Lauderdale.”

Local bars and hotels had prepared themselves for this year’s crowds to reach new highs in particular due to the influx of Spring Breakers turned away from Miami Beach. Alongside the Miami Beach crackdown, Gov. Ron DeSantis sent state troopers to help police across the state, including in Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood.

The Elbo Room, Fort Lauderdale’s iconic Spring Break bar, had a “great Spring Break” with its usual crowds, said co-owner Mike Penrod.

The bar hired detail officers day and night to prepare for rowdy Miami crowds, but the crowds never came.

“The people that cause the problems in Miami Beach,” Penrod said, “I think they’re still in Miami. They didn’t come up here.”

Some think Miami Beach’s decision to crack down on the season actually had the opposite of the expected effect on Fort Lauderdale.

“To be honest it wasn’t as crazy as it’s been in the past,” said Mychal Milian, a lodging instructor at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management who also serves as the complex director of operations for the Dania Pointe Marriott Hotels at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, adding that the expected surge was “one-hundred percent hype.”

Milian chalked the relative calm up to “a multitude of things” including more expensive flights and hotels, a return to normalcy after the surge in visitors South Florida has seen in recent years, and the news about Miami Beach.

“I think the whole Miami Beach breaking up with Spring Break could’ve made it a little more calm here in South Florida,” he said, “not only in Miami Beach.”

Miami Beach Mayor Steve Meiner held a news conference Monday thanking law enforcement for the Spring Break “success” this year. Police reported an 8% decrease in arrests city-wide from last year.

“Everyone’s ecstatic,” Meiner said, adding that even businesses reported increased revenue, though that was not the case across the board: several nightclubs unsuccessfully sued the city over its midnight curfew.

‘Well-handled’

The craziness also isn’t entirely over. Fort Lauderdale is gearing up for Tortuga Music Festival, which may bring some of the college students who held off on coming before, though Milian said sales also appear to be down for the festival compared to last year.

Fort Lauderdale began the season by simultaneously encouraging Spring Breakers to visit and follow the rules.

The city held a news conference at the beginning of the month warning that the city would be full of officers strictly enforcing rules that included no fake ID’s, and no alcohol, tents or canopies on the beach. Police roamed the beach each day, keeping an eye on Spring Breakers while also trying to recruit some of them.

That proactive approach helped thwart the chaos, Chavarria said.

“Proper planning and having the right message and having an appealing campaign about having safe fun or organized fun, that was our campaign, to how we promoted the website that shows what you can and can’t do, to even being inclusive of career opportunities — when we took that approach I think that just opened the door for people to be compliant,” he said.

Penrod said he saw officers out on the beach with tents that Spring Breakers would go up to if they needed help.

“I think they did pretty damn good,” he said. “The fireman were out there. No one got drugged. It was really well-handled.”