With violence on the rise, one Florida city might put an end to spring break

Spring break revelers in Panama City Beach, Florida.
(Image credit: Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)

In an effort to curb violence, the tourism council in Bay County, Florida, voted Tuesday to spend more money on security during spring break — but some local residents say that even though visitors inject millions of dollars into the economy, they would be happy if revelers found a new place to go wild.

The population of Panama City Beach swells every spring break, from 12,000 full-time residents to 250,000, mostly college students. "When it hits, you literally go from a crawl to 100 miles-an-hour overnight," Sparky Sparkman, owner of the Spinnaker bar, told CBS News. "Therein lies the problem of spring break."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.