March is spring break time in Daytona Beach, although you may not notice it away from the beach. Daytona Beach lost its title as the World Capital of Spring Break back in the 1990s and the event now is far more subdued.
The earliest mentions of the phrase “spring break” in the pages of The News-Journal date back to 1965. That was the year before Daytona Beach motel owners made a push to steal Spring Break overflow from Fort Lauderdale. They were successful, and the result was a raucous break that prompted more than 150 arrests. Enough that the City of Daytona Beach took the unprecedented step of banning alcohol consumption on the beach. (Volusia County would not take over beach management until 1988.)
MTV started broadcasting live from the Bandshell during Spring Break 1986 and the number of breakers ballooned. During the eight years of the MTV-hosted spring break, Daytona Beach gained a national reputation as the nation’s springtime party town. A reputation city residents and leaders soon tired of amid resident complaints about gridlock, public drunkenness, property destruction and general party-out-of-bounds rowdiness.
MTV moved its spring break broadcasting to California in 1994. The crowds locally quickly thinned out as other places marketed themselves as spring break hotspots. The spring break market fragmented, expanded and even became international.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: When Daytona Beach was ‘Spring Breakville’
Reporting by Mark Lane, Special to The News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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