Families make for quiet Spring Break
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Port Aransas police were braced for trouble-making Spring Breakers this year. The fact that they didn't seem to arrive, however, didn't disappoint officers much at all.

"I don't think we had as many Spring Breakers this year as we had last year, but I do know that this year's were a lot better behaved," said police detective Lt. Darryl Johnson, one of the Port Aransas officers who worked 12-hour shifts during Spring Break.

Patrol Lt. James Stokes agreed, and also credited a new city ordinance that prohibits public drinking on the beach between midnight and 2 a.m. during March with keeping rowdiness down this year. State law forbids drinking between 2 and 7 a.m.

The ordinance, passed at the request of Police Chief Sam Russell over some city council misgivings, went into effect just in time for Spring Break. Russell said officers patrolling the beach didn't use it to make many arrests, however.

"What (officers would) do, they'd find a place that was a potential trou- ble spot, or a developing trouble spot, and they'd just tell the kids about the ordinance. Almost every time, the kids poured the beer out," Russell said.

He said arrests this year were down by around 100 from last year, and only two major incidents occurred on the beach. Neither involved a fatality; last year, at least one person was stabbed and two others died in a Spring Break-related fiery auto crash on State Hwy. 361.

Kim Hansen, area manager for Stripes convenience stores, said the first two weeks of Spring Break were "dead," but sales picked up the third week - the week of March 17-21. That's the week police expected the most trouble; Spring Breakers that week were mostly area high school students instead of college students from places like The University of Texas at Austin or Texas A&M University-College Station, who took their Spring Break the previous week.

Hansen said gasoline sales by volume were down during Spring Break, even though cash sales were up because of the rise in gasoline prices. Sales of merchandise, she said, were up between 1 and 3 percent over last year.

"We're not disappointed in this year's Spring Break," Hansen said. "It wasn't super-duper, but we're not disappointed."

Mike Hall, co-owner and director of the Family Center IGA grocery store here, normally keeps exact figures on sales, but Hall is unavailable and had no summary of how Spring Break went.

Also, retailers said numbers could have been skewed by the fact that Easter Sunday ended the second week of Spring Break this year.

"Usually, the final Saturday is our biggest day," Hansen said. "This year, I think they started going home on Friday. I think lots of kids may have gone home for Easter."

Visitors to Mustang Island beaches commented on the number of families seen this year, as well.

"Almost the entire north end of the beach (from the south jetty to Beach Access Road 1A) was families," Russell said. "The youngsters moved farther south this year than they were last year, and families just took over the north end of the beach."

Police statistics showed a total of 242 arrests between March 13 and March 23. Most of those arrests (108) were made by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers, who were in town as part of a driving while intoxicated task force. Troopers made 71 of the 74 arrests recorded for driving while intoxicated and 15 of the 26 arrests for possession of marijuana.

Other high numbers of arrests were made for disorderly conduct-fighting (7), minor in possession of alcohol (17), possession of a controlled substance (10), willful and wanton disregard for persons and property (8) and public intoxication (73). In addition, officers made 30 arrests on various kinds of outstanding warrants, including four warrants for felony crimes.