Miami Beach considers playing classical music to calm down spring break parties

Things are getting out of control during Miami Beach’s spring break celebrations, so one official wants to calm the party down with some classical music.

Commissioners in the Florida city are looking at a range of ideas to pacify the throngs of college students who flock to the beaches every year in an annual rite of passage usually involving sun tans and beer bongs. Their ideas include revisiting their marijuana possession policies, banning scooter rentals during peak periods, and, replacing dub step with Mozart on the loudspeakers.

A hectic spring break weekend last weekend brought in so many party goers that police had to temporarily block traffic in some areas, that led to at least one human stampede, and was a "high percentage" of sexual assaults, commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez told The Independent.

So, Ms Gonzalez, who is also running for Congress in November, suggested to her fellow commissioners the week that playing music party goers really do not like could break up the raucous fetes.

“Sometimes when you want to stop the party, you have to turn off the lights,” Ms Gonzalez, who noted that she is not certain that playing classical music would actually have an effect, said. “Now, we can’t turn off the music and the lights, but we can play something they hate.”

Ms Gonzalez stressed that, in proposing a potential review of the city’s marijuana policy, the commission is not looking to put people in jail for pot. They just do not want a shroud of smoke hanging over their city from public use.

“We don’t want marijuana to be criminal or arrest-able,” she said. “But we also don’t want it being smoked everywhere in public.”

The city experienced 5,000 to 6,000 party goers this past weekend, with crowding occurring beyond an area that police could control. The day marked the peak of spring break season, and happened to be St Patrick’s Day — a perfect storm that officials have said led to the highest spring break turnout they have ever seen.

The mass of people led to resident complaints that the primarily youthful group of people were engaged in all sorts of crude behaviours, like urinating in public and smoking marijuana in public. Public intoxication, it was later said, was rampant.

At one point, Ms Gonzalez said, a bottle broke, sparking a human stampede that knocked over tables and chairs outside of cafes as party goers rushed to get away from what sounded like a blast.

And it is exactly situations like that Ms Gonzalez says her commission would like to never see again.

“We want Miami beach to be safe for the college kids that visit, the children, and the families,” she said.