{"id":201788,"date":"2026-03-22T23:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/201788\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T23:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:02:08","slug":"cops-ban-over-the-top-twerking-at-legendary-fla-party-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/201788\/","title":{"rendered":"Cops ban over-the-top twerking at legendary Fla. party beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Too much twerking is a no-go <\/a>at one legendary Florida party beach \u2014 where cops showed up with paintball guns and pepper spray over the weekend to shut down the wild spring-break booty shakin\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo twerking! You will be charged with disorderly conduct!\u201d The Post heard an officer from Florida Fish and Wildlife shout at a group of cheeky over-the-top female twerkers in Panama City Beach on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Girls just wanting to have fun at Panama City Beach, Fla., are banned from excessive booty-shaking. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

A police officer patrols a crowd with a paint gun in Panama City Beach on Saturday. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

Daytona Beach is the site of a mass stampede earlier this month. TikTok\/romandelangel4<\/p>\n

The \u201cFootloose\u201d-esque bums rush came after a swath of violence<\/a> in Daytona Beach that included four shootings and a panicked stampede at a party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Panama City Beach, a longtime hard-partying spring-break mecca, has tried to clean up its reputation after its own struggles with shootings, out-of-control parties and sexual assaults in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t drink on the beach in PCB. You can\u2019t even have coolers. And there\u2019s an 8 p.m. curfew,\u201d said Emory Gill, 21, who sells alcohol-fueled Jell-O shots on the beach in the nearby town of Destin, which has become a new panhandle party zone in the wake of PCB\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n

Cops in the local idyllic beach enclave of Seaside, which was featured in the hit Jim Carrey flick \u201cThe Truman Show,\u201d also were out in force this weekend to make sure teen spring breakers minded their Ps and Qs.<\/p>\n

Emory Gill, 21, sells Jell-O shots by the seashore in Destin. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

Sherff\u2019s deputies bust up a throng of spring breakers at Panama City Beach. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

A young man sits in cuffs after being arrested at Panama City Beach Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

Influencers on TikTok and Instagram have helped make the typically picturesque village a major destination for the teen and college set \u2014 leading to a new curfew for minors and an entire marketing campaign urging parents to keep track of their kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFive years ago, spring break was absolutely crazy. But what we did was create this curfew and a campaign with the #ComeGetYourKids to encourage parents to keep track of their unaccompanied minors,\u201d said Kevin Boyle, general manager of the Seaside Community Development Corporation, to The Post.<\/p>\n

In Okaloosa County, home to Destin, deputies have recently issued nearly 300 citations for various party-related crimes, including alcohol-related offenses, the sheriff\u2019s office told The Post.<\/p>\n

Tommy Ford, sheriff of Bay County, which hosts Panama City Beach, said the problems are two-fold.<\/p>\n

First, in recent years, high schools in nearby Atlanta have started coordinating their spring break schedules, meaning throngs of teens swarm into town like locusts.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement officers with beach buggies watch for party fouls. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

Miramar Beach is another spring-break hotspot on the Florida Panhandle. Christopher Oquendo<\/p>\n

Partiers stampede after reports of gunfire at Daytona Beach on March 14. TikTok\/wayofkaywil<\/p>\n

Second: there has been the advent of \u201ctakeovers\u201d \u2014 informal, flash meetups organized on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have thousands of people showing up in one place, there are some with guns. There are gangbangers. And you have crowd dynamics where someone pulls out a gun, and it causes a stampede,\u201d Ford told The Post.<\/p>\n

As for the twerking, it \u201cis not inherently against the law unless it becomes lewd or if there is a noise ordinance complaint,\u201d Ford said of the crackdown \u2014 which could be likened to the small-town ban on dancing in the Kevin Bacon classic movie \u201cFootloose.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Daytona Beach, the local sheriff has vowed to crack down on instigators of mayhem and even sue the organizers of last week\u2019s dangerous beach takeover.<\/p>\n

Ford said he is concerned the crackdown will drive the throngs of youngsters to his town, but if they do come, \u201cWe\u2019ll be ready for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Too much twerking is a no-go at one legendary Florida party beach \u2014 where cops showed up with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,41470,93042,25246,4278],"class_list":["post-201788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-spring-break","tag-twerking","tag-underage-drinking","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}