May 1, 2024
TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (AP) — Thousands of college students expected this weekend for an annual spring bash at Georgia's largest public beach will be greeted by dozens of extra police officers and barricades closing off neighborhood streets. While the beach will remain open, officials are blocking access to nearby parking.
Tybee Island east of Savannah has grappled with the April beach party known as Orange Crush since students at Savannah State University, a historically Black school, started it more than 30 years ago. Residents regularly groused about loud music, trash littering the sand and revelers urinating in yards.
Those complaints boiled over into fear and outrage a year ago when record crowds estimated at more than 100,000 people overwhelmed the 3-mile island. That left a small police force scrambling to handle a flood of emergency calls reporting gunfire, drug overdoses, traffic jams and fist fights.
Mayor Brian West, elected last fall by Tybee Island's 3,100 residents, said roadblocks and added police aren't just for limiting crowds. He hopes the crackdown will drive Orange Crush away for good.
“This has to stop. We can’t have this crowd anymore," West said. “My goal is to end it.”
During the week, workers placed metal barricades to block off parking meters and residential streets along the main road parallel to the beach. Two large parking lots near a popular pier are being closed. And Tybee Island’s roughly two dozen police officers will be augmented by about 100 sheriff’s deputies, Georgia state troopers and other officers.
Security plans were influenced by tactics used last month to reduce crowds and violence at spring break in Miami Beach, which was observed by Tybee Island's police chief.
Officials say they're acting to avoid a repeat of last year's Orange Crush party, which they say became a public safety crisis with crowds at least double their typical size.
West, who believes city officials previously haven’t taken a stronger stand against Orange Crush because they feared being called racist, says, “We can’t let that be a reason to let our citizens be unsafe and so we’re not.”
Tybee Island police reported 26 total arrests during Orange Crush last year. Charges included one armed robbery with a firearm, four counts of fighting in public and five DUIs. Two officers reported being pelted with bottles, and two women told police they were beaten and robbed of a purse.
On a gridlocked highway about a mile off the island, someone fired a gun into a car and injured one person. A white man was charged in the shooting, which officials blamed on road rage.
At Nickie's 1971 Bar & Grill near the beach, general manager Sean Ensign said many neighboring shops and eateries will close for Orange Crush though his will stay open, selling to-go food orders like last year. But with nearby parking spaces closed, Ensign said his profits might take a hit, “possibly a few thousand dollars.”
It's not the first time Tybee Island has targeted the beach party. In 2017, the city council banned alcohol and amplified music on the beach only during Orange Crush weekend. A discrimination complaint to the U.S. Justice Department resulted in city officials signing a non-binding agreement to impose uniform rules for large events.
West says Orange Crush is different because it's promoted on social media by people who haven't obtained permits. A new state law lets local governments recoup public safety expenses from organizers of unpermitted events.
In February, Britain Wigfall was denied an permit for space on the island for food trucks during Orange Crush. The mayor said Wigfall has continued to promote events on the island.
Wigfall, 30, said he's promoting a concert this weekend in Savannah, but nothing on Tybee Island involving Orange Crush.
“I don't control it," Wigfall said. "Nobody controls the date that people go down there."
