PANAMA CITY — Bars will close at 2 a.m. in March on Panama City Beach and imbibers on the beach will be required to have a government-issued picture identification.
The move came Thursday when the Panama City Beach City Council gave final approval to the ordinances designed to tone down Spring Break.
The council delayed making a decision on a third ordinance that calls for limiting the number of events on the beach during Spring Break and would require the organizers of special events with 500 or more people to get a permit from the city, as well as provide fencing, security, emergency personnel and traffic control for the events. The City Council postponed the decision after business owners expressed concerns the new law could impact events on their property not related to the traditional Spring Break celebration, and they questioned whether the 500-person threshold was too low.
A workshop between the council and business owners was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Nov. 12.
Russell Kinslow, who said he works for a number of hotels on Panama City Beach, said the goal of the early bar-closing ordinance — to force spring breakers who have rooms to go back to them so police can deal with people who don’t have rooms — won’t work. He suggested they might want to try closing at 3 a.m. instead to try it out.
“I just don’t believe they are going to be so quick to go back to their rooms,” he said of college spring breakers.
Kinslow said the spring breakers will continue the party out in the roads or the Wal-Mart parking lot after 2 a.m.
“It definitely seems like your goal is to prevent ‘100-milers’ from having prey, but in reality, you are giving ‘100-milers’ two more hours to identify, stalk and attack their prey,” he said, referring to spring breakers who drive to Panama City Beach from nearby areas but don’t have lodging for the night.
Lee Piza, a bartender at Watershed Bar in St. Andrews in Panama City, urged the council not to adopt the change in bar hours. Bay County has a law that requires its liquor sale hours to match Panama City Beach’s, and Panama City has a law that states its hours will match the county’s.
Piza said they have local customers and don’t cater to spring breakers, and the bar does brisk business between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. He said the bar will lose $30,000 in revenues from the early closing hours.
He called the ordinance a “knee-jerk” reaction to an unflattering report on Spring Break 2014 on Fox News.
Police Chief Drew Whitman said it was not a knee-jerk reaction, and he conceded that not every spring breaker who leaves the bar at 2 a.m. will go back to their hotel room.
But, Whitman said, closing two hours early will give officers time to focus on looking for criminal activities that are more common with visitors who aren’t registered in local hotels.
“That gives me two extra hours we can focus on unregistered guests,” he said. “This is just an exercise. We’re going to try it. I can’t guarantee it is going to work, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”
City Manager Mario Gisbert pointed out the ordinance scaling back the bar hours will expire April 1, so it is just being tried out on a trial basis.
Whitman said police will be enforcing the ID law judiciously, such as when there are large crowds of people who look like there may be underage drinkers.
Councilman John Reichard said he wants the city to evaluate how well the proposals work.
“I’d like an evaluation of how this works in our city to be by officers and management of our city,” he said.
Other action
The council never brought up the issue of banning e-cigarettes in city buildings after Councilwoman Josie Strange, who brought the issue up, dropped it.
The council also unanimously denied a front-yard setback requested by a property owner who wanted to build a new restaurant at 15007 Front Beach Road that would have allowed parking in the front of the restaurant instead of the back by the gulfside.
The council made the same decision as the Planning Board, which on Sept. 8 voted to deny the variance request, basing the decision on the city’s new Land Development Code adopted in July 2012 that puts parking in the back of structures along Front Beach Road. The request was to increase a required 14-foot front-yard setback by 60 feet to allow a 74-foot front-yard setback on property at 15007 Front Beach Road. The property owner is Lawrence Family Enterprises and Susan Bell.
Robert Carroll, a land planner representing the applicant, told the Planning Board the applicant is trying to get permission to build a 2,461-foot beach bar and restaurant.