The Associated Press
Brownsville -- South Texas law officers are beefing up patrols for spring break on South Padre Island beaches, using horses, bicycles and all-terrain vehicles to get to remote areas.
For spring break, the South Padre Island force more than triples to 80 officers, hiring from throughout the area to work double-time shifts.
“We know what we’re looking at, and we prepare for it,” SPI Police Chief Robert Rodriguez told The Brownsville Herald in today’s editions.
In February 2003, the month before the student holiday, South Padre Island police arrested just over 100 people. But the next month, when some 180,000 visitors crammed onto the three-mile stretch of coastline, arrests increased to more than 1,500.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission last year gave out more than 2,100 citations for misdemeanor offenses, including public intoxication and selling alcohol to minors, as well as felony charges of possession and distribution of narcotics.
“My headache started in mid-January,” TABC Sgt. Mario Villarreal said in a phone interview from his McAllen office last week.
Villarreal was assembling a team of some 30 agents from throughout the state to South Padre Island for spring break.
He said the TABC has already started its spring break enforcement. Last weekend, the TABC went undercover in 12 stores from Los Fresnos to South Padre Island. Half of those stores sold alcohol to a minor.
“They’ll either get a fine or lose their license, depending on if they’ve done this before,” Villarreal said of penalties a store faces for selling alcohol to minors.
Despite challenges for law enforcement, South Padre Island civic leaders promote the school holiday. A report from the University of Texas Pan American’s research center for tourism shows it brings more than $150 million in economic benefits to the island and more than $200 million to the Rio Grande Valley.