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Spend a night on Seabreeze Boulevard, Daytona’s busiest street

Monicel
Spend a night on Seabreeze Boulevard, Daytona’s busiest street

DAYTONA BEACH — It’s a little after 2 a.m. on a fall Friday night outside the Razzle nightclub at the east end of Seabreeze Boulevard, and a brawl has drawn a jeering crowd into the middle from the street

“Yes, frat boy! Yes, frat boy!” shouts one of the dozens of twenty-something onlookers, each armed with cellphone cameras pointed at the brief, bloodless altercation. A Daytona Beach police officer chases one of the fighters in circles down the street, like a chicken loose in a coop.

“Loser!” the sidewalk announcer proclaims as the officer slaps his fists. “The first time he comes to Daytona (sic), he goes to jail!”

Like swallows returning to Capistrano, these scenes have long been part of the weekend routine along Seabreeze, a beachside street tent in the heart of the key tourist district on the most famous beach in world with a bad reputation for noise, nighttime crime and crime. rumor

In response, a little over a year ago in September 2023, Daytona Beach police marked the opening of a new police substation a stone’s throw from the scene of that brawl from Friday night.

The milestone came less than two months after Karla Bermudez, 29, of Daytona Beach, was accused of shooting and injuring four people during a fight in the back parking lot of Razzle on the night of July 22, 2023.

Bermudez, who claimed self-defense, remains being held without bond at the Volusia County Branch Jail on four counts of attempted murder with a firearm and one count of carrying a firearm or concealed weapon in a specific place, according to the records.

It was an incident that ignited calls from business owners and residents of nearby neighborhoods for more to be done to curb the late-night mayhem.

Police Chief: By his presence alone, the substation deters bad behavior

Not coincidentally, the new substation is not only a block away from the Razzle parking lot, but also next door and across the street from two of the three strip clubs: Grandview Live, Lollipops Gentlemen’s Club and Molly Brown’s, which also form the busy intersection. of Seabreeze and Grandview Avenue.

In its first year, the substation has been successful as a symbolic and practical deterrent to crime and unwanted behavior, Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said. At the same time, the department did not have statistics to support this assessment.

“The thing is, I don’t think we’ll ever really measure how many incidents we’re going to deter just by being in that same place,” Young said. “I’m also curious to look at the statistics to see how much of a reduction there has been.”

Regardless of what the numbers show, police won’t be able to prevent all incidents, such as Friday night’s recent brawl, one of two that unfolded after the bar’s 2 a.m. closing time , Young said.

“Even with the substation right there in the middle of all the bars, we’re not going to be able to completely stop all of these incidents,” he said.

“My goal is to make sure we have the staff to be on top of it. We’re going to continue to do the best we can, both to deter crime and to make the arrests that need to be made when people are on the loose.”

The substation isn’t the only safety-oriented change at Seabreeze

At least one Friday night regular agrees the substation has made a difference.

From the order window at his Filipino food truck Kirby’s Asian Fusion, owner Kirby Carigara has a ringside seat to the night scene around Grandview and Seabreeze.

“It’s been a big help now that the police are here,” Carigara said. “It’s been safer. If you fight, you know the police are right there and they’re going to pick you up right away.”

The new substation isn’t the only change in recent years in the name of taming behavior at Seabreeze.

About a year ago, Daytona Beach city commissioners decided to spend more than $3.5 million over the next few years to purchase and install cameras and lighting to improve safety on Seabreeze Boulevard, as well as Main Street.

Most of that $3.5 million is new lighting, with the cost for the Seabreeze cameras estimated at $100,000.

The move comes a year after Daytona Beach’s bar closing time moved back an hour from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m., a change that took effect on June 1, 2022.

Collectively, those actions have worked, said Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry, who also could not provide statistics to reflect the impact.

“It sends a message that we’re concerned about the Seabreeze area and we’re going to do whatever it takes to reduce the problems we’ve had there over the years,” Henry said. “I don’t have any quantifiable data that says it’s better, but I’m hearing fewer reports from residents, fewer comments by email or phone about issues being there, so I think it’s better.”

City Commissioner Ken Strickland, whose area includes Seabreeze and other parts of the north end of the city beach, is also optimistic about the impact of the changes.

“We’ve worked really hard to get the substation in, upgrade the lights, the cameras and that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time, I think, before everyone realizes that you can have a good time, but you have to behave.

“I don’t have anything quantitative to show that it works, but I’ve heard some neighbors (who live) nearby saying it seems to be quieter. It’s gotten better and will continue to get better as the word gets out.”

Neighborhood residents have noticed a difference

Among the neighborhood residents who have noticed a positive impact is Anita Gallentine, 69, who has lived with her husband two blocks from Seabreeze for 30 years. She’s one of the people who has endured the bass and drum grinds of nightclub PA systems, roaring engines of stuck vehicles cruising late into the night, and other interruptions for years.

“I’ve seen an improvement because we have police officers who are available at higher levels at peak times and are closer to Ground Zero,” he said. “This is what we always wanted. We have invested wisely by putting an enclosure there. They’re close and can see things on camera, which is great. Cameras don’t lie.”

Like Young, the police chief, Gallentine is realistic about the prospect of eliminating all problems.

“We still have the crazy people who want to get drunk and fight,” he said. “We don’t always get real reports of what’s going on down there, even at our monthly neighborhood watch meetings.

“Much of this information is not disclosed, unless the press presses it. So the type of behavior is the same, but the police are there to try and reduce it as much as they can. I love Jakari and his staff. They do a phenomenal job. We always support the local police very, very much.”

On a Friday night, a mix of young clubbers and older couples

On a recent Friday night, the law enforcement presence is constant along the east end of Seabreeze, where police cruisers make the westbound turn onto the boulevard from Grandview about every 15 or 20 minutes throughout the night.

On the sidewalks, the crowd is a mix of exuberant young clubbers and older couples out for a weekend lunch at The Oyster Pub across Grandview from Razzle’s, or Anna’s Trattoria Italian Cuisine on the far west end quiet of the boulevard.

“We come here especially to eat at the Oyster Pub every Friday night at least three weekends a month,” said Vernita Brooks, who walked the short distance from her parking lot across the street with her husband, Nathan.

They go from the car to the restaurant, enjoy their usual order of grilled oysters and a basket of shrimp, and return to the car with the same efficiency. At the moment, the crowds are ruined, “we’re already back home and getting ready to go to bed.”

If they had looked around on their most recent visit, they might have noticed a bunch of twenty-something bar patrons hobbling around, talking loudly on cell phones, and waiting in line to go through the metal detectors at Razzle’s, at the 509 Lounge and other locations.

At one point, an inebriated bouncer encouraged a clubgoer to move on as he tried several times to wrestle a towering green inflatable outside Molly Brown’s strip club.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the young man insisted to his friends, echoing the porter’s message. “Dude, I know you,” one of them replied in exasperation.

At Razzle’s, an investment in safety

At Razzle’s, metal detectors are among measures imposed by the city to keep the club open and serving alcohol between midnight and 2 a.m. in the wake of the 2023 parking lot shooting.

These new restrictions also include limiting the size of bags or purses to 5 inches by 9 inches by 2 inches; ban backpacks; and use scanners or card readers to verify the authenticity of identification cards.

The club’s two metal detectors each cost between $5,000 and $10,000, according to information presented to the city commission in 2023. The club’s state-of-the-art scanner system for ID card checks costs at least $30,000 annual dollars.

On a recent Friday night, it was clear that the system denied entry to some would-be customers, including at least one man who returned several times without success.

Strip Club Manager: Not all bars follow the rules

Around the corner at Grandview Live, strip club patrons are also greeted by a metal detector, but a club manager complained that the new rules are unevenly enforced.

“Across the street is a hookah bar that stays open until 5 or 6 in the morning, selling liquor,” said the manager, who asked not to be named because his comments were not considered criticism of the police. “They get away with everything there, basically.”

In response, Young, the police chief, said officers had tried to shut down the hookah bar, an effort that was thwarted when the club’s lawyer found a legal loophole that allowed it to remain open.

“It’s not something we’re giving up on, but it’s very, very frustrating,” Young said. “The way they operate is not fair to other establishments that operate according to the rules. That’s frustrating.”

Despite these setbacks, Young is convinced that Seabreeze is headed in the right direction.

“I’m absolutely satisfied, but I’m not satisfied,” he said. “There’s more work to be done.”

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