By most accounts, this year’s notorious Floatopia beach party in Santa Barbara was a little less wild this year thanks to a crackdown by authorities.
The annual event drew hundreds if not thousands of college students and young people, and the alcohol was apparently flowing, according to reports. But there were fewer problems, authorities said.
This year, authorities barricaded beach access points in the area — but KTLA News reported that revelers found other ways to the beach.
Last year, deputies handed out 78 citations for alcohol-related crimes and
made 13 arrests. Thirty-three participants
required hospital treatment for alcohol poisoning, heat exposure and
cuts. Two of them toppled off the bluffs that border the beach.
Started about five years ago with several hundred people drinking just
offshore on rubber rafts and inner tubes, the celebration has been a
barely planned rite of spring, with no formal sponsor, security or
provisions for emergency aid. It has inspired similar events, most
notably in San Diego.
In Santa Barbara, the 2009 edition was
bigger — and, to county officials, more environmentally damaging —
than before: "Without restroom facilities, many attendees simply used
the ocean, creating a large concentration of human waste that
threatened sea life," according to a statement from the Sheriff’s Department.
— Shelby Grad
Photo credit: KTLA