AL.com – After years of discussion, months of loud public outcry and a battle of dueling t-shirts, the Panama City Beach City Council unanimously approved a motion Tuesday night to ban alcohol consumption on the beaches during March 2016, the peak of the college spring break season.
The council voted 5-0 in favor of the ban in the closing minutes of a three-hour council meeting that took place at the Arnold High School auditorium rather than the usual city council chambers to accommodate the hundreds of residents who wanted to weigh in on the proposals.
Members of the group Citizens for a New Panama City Beach erupted into applause after the vote was taken. Many of them were wearing matching blue custom t-shirts with the words “Please save our beach” emblazoned over an image of a young boy playing on the beach with an American flag planted next to him in the sand.
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Yo fuck these people. Seriously. “Please save our beach”?? What are you fucking kidding me? It’s Panama City Beach you dunces, it exists for one purpose and one purpose only. To host the wildest, craziest, most debauchery filled Spring Breaks ever, spring after spring, year after year. That’s literally why PCB was invented. And you want it for what? A young boy to play on the beach with an American flag? Let me ask you something, you think that boy wants to look at a sandcastle or a bunch of sorority girls boobs bouncing around in bikinis? Ask him, I’ll wait.
And did you even consider the ramifications? Something like “the economy,” maybe you heard about it in college?
Across the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) aisle, were members of Citizens United for Panama City Beach, which included dozens of hospitality workers and others who fear the ban will hurt the city’s economy. They wore white t-shirts that read “Please save our jobs.”
Saddest thing I’ve ever read. A bunch of downtrodden workers with tears forming in their eyes watching their rents, car payments, retirement funds disappear, poof, into thin air.
I did get a kick out of what a show this whole thing was. Just picturing this town council hall packed to the gills with people, half in Save Our Beach tees, half in Save Our Jobs tees, waving signs in the air and screaming at each other about indecent exposure and beer bongs and God. A big production all over Spring Break, and they streamed the damn thing on YouTube.
During the lengthy meeting preceding the vote (which was live-streamed via YouTube), Mayor Gayle Oberst reminded the audience multiple times that cheering or booing the speakers would only prolong the agony if the meeting had to end before the council could vote.
“If we don’t vote on them, we’re just dragging them out over months and months,” Oberst said to one speaker who was in favor of the alcohol ban. “Let’s pass them and get it over with.”
More than an hour later, that’s exactly what happened.
Honestly get a load of this wet blanket.
Finally, local attorney Wes Pittman delivered a philosophical closing argument on behalf of the “blue shirts,” those advocating the more drastic measures recommended by Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, including the alcohol ban.
“Where do you stand in the universe?” Pittman asked. “Do you want to be remembered by open sex on the beach? Still in our minds are shootings, rapes, stabbings, rampant drunkenness and chaos.”
Sounds like a guy who’s never been invited to a single party in his entire life. Rampant drunkenness and chaos, ohhhhhhh, not that, not a little bit of fun. (Shootings, rapes and stabbings are really really bad, I will totally agree with the attorney on those points). Come on PCB. Get it together. Know where your bread is buttered. Stick a few extra cops out there to keep the really bad apples out and let the college kids spend a week taking 8 foot long beer funnels directly into their stomachs, the future of awesome internet videos depends on it.