Mayors of New Jersey’s coastal towns are increasingly hoping the state will back away from recent moves to reduce penalties for juvenile offenders, targeting bad parenting, after a rise in teenage mobs wreaking havoc in vacation villages.
A false report of an active shooter in Seaside Heights sent many children panicking and running from the boardwalk on Saturday night. In Ocean City, a dry-drinking town that bills itself as “America’s Best Family Resort,” a group of young men and boys was seen on video punching and kicking a teenager who was pinned down on the boardwalk. A 15-year-old boy was also stabbed. Wildwood leaders quelled the “civil disturbance” by declaring a state of emergency and closing the boardwalk.
The three beach towns are popular summer vacation spots for families, high school graduates planning post-prom parties and other seasonal tourists, but the large influx of unsupervised young people is putting stress on local police, businesses and tourists.
In Seaside Heights, Mayor Anthony Vaz imposed a summertime curfew for minors and banned them from renting housing without an adult.
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Revelry abounded in towns along New Jersey’s coast over Memorial Day weekend. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
“We need to ban smoking on the boardwalk, ban smoking marijuana, ban underage drinking,” Vaz said. “That’s a good point. Get thousands of police officers to do this. Thousands of them. Use all your strength. They can’t succeed unless there is a law that says this behavior is punishable.”
“There’s no respect for law enforcement.”
Vaz has joined other local leaders in going to the state legislature to urge tougher penalties for the most violent juvenile offenders and tougher punishments for teenagers caught smoking marijuana or consuming alcohol in public.
VIDEO: ‘Unruly, parentless kids’ spark emergency in Wildwood
About a 90-minute drive down the Garden State Parkway, in Wildwood, Mayor Tony Troiano Jr. declared a state of emergency Sunday through Monday over Memorial Day weekend, citing unruly teen behavior.
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Troiano says Wildwood does not tolerate rowdy behavior. (Gary Hirschhorn/Getty Images)
He said FOX 29 Philadelphia His city “will not tolerate unruly, undisciplined and parentless children, nor will it stand idly by while state laws tie the hands of police.”
“We want everybody to have a good experience, that’s all,” he told Fox News Digital. “Please pretend to stay home. If you’re going to act stupid at home, please stay home.”
The city notified residents on Monday, saying police have been inundated with calls about “very large” violent groups, many of them unaccompanied teenagers. The police department has already dwindled to fewer than 50 officers this summer from nearly 100 in normal times and is struggling to send officers to other emergencies.
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Troiano said unaccompanied children should stay away from beach resort towns and parents should be vigilant about unacceptable behavior. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
He has since reopened the boardwalk with the help of nearby law enforcement agencies, inviting visitors back in and asking them to be well behaved.
“Please come and enjoy our services,” he said. “Please obey the law. No underage drinking or marijuana smoking.”
Troiano said he received a call from the governor after the emergency was declared and is hopeful the governor will amend state law to “take the handcuffs off” police officers who are working at reduced staffing and tasked with enforcing rules that repeat offenders continue to violate because there is no punishment.
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Troiano says he is working hard to remove handcuffs from officers to enforce strict rules against inappropriate behavior on the beach. (Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images)
“Everything about this is so egregious,” he said. “They’re allowing kids to break the law and they can’t do anything about it.”
Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian said police arrested several teenagers and quickly “restored order” on the boardwalk.
“In recent years, like other coastal towns, Ocean City experienced a number of issues over the early Memorial Day weekend with large numbers of teenagers gathering on the boardwalk, including fights, shoplifting and disorderly behavior,” the mayor said in a statement over the weekend. “I understand the impact this behavior has on all of our residents, visitors and business owners, and I want to assure everyone that Ocean City will not tolerate this behavior.”
Vaz, of Seaside Heights, said the most egregious offenders always break the rules, but he said he has witnessed plenty of times when misbehaving minors had no fear of retribution.
The biggest crimes are happening in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, the beach town made world famous by the MTV reality show “Jersey Shore.” (Gary Hirschhorn/Getty Images)
“Young people, under 18 and over 18, know this,” he said. “I’ve seen with my own eyes when police have stopped young people for things like smoking marijuana, and the answer is, ‘There’s nothing I can do.'”
“They don’t believe in authority. They believe in rights.”
They refuse to cooperate and often give false names, he said.
“The officer has to write it down as ‘Joe Schmo,’ because that’s what the boy said his name was,” he said.
The mayor, a former schools superintendent, said he has worked with teenagers for decades and has seen a dramatic change in how they interact with not just police but all adults.
Officials and residents in New Jersey’s coastal towns say the state’s law decriminalizing marijuana use is having the unintended effect of emboldening hordes of teenagers to run wild on beaches and boardwalks, knowing there’s little chance they’ll get in trouble. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
“When I was younger, I was no angel, but I was scared of retribution if I did anything wrong. [and] “I trusted that if I did something really bad, my parents, especially my father, would sort it out for me,” he says. “Very few parents are like that these days.”
What he saw were groups of kids, some as young as 14, coming into town without adult supervision to get their hands on drugs and alcohol.
“Good kids become bad kids,” he said. “Without respect, it’s more than just disobedience.”
“If I was a 17-year-old kid and I was drinking beer and the cops stopped me, I’d be super nervous,” he says. “They’re not nervous. They don’t care.”
Vaz said he considered declaring a state of emergency when the number of kids on the boardwalk became too large for the police department to handle, but he credits neighboring law enforcement agencies for helping to calm the situation.
“There were thousands of kids there on Saturday,” Vaz said. “I’ve been here 58 years and I’ve never seen such a large crowd of young people in my life.”
In the coastal community of Wildwood, New Jersey, people walk and bike along the boardwalk the day before Memorial Day weekend, marking the unofficial start of summer. (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
Then someone yelled, “Shots fired!” The video shows the ensuing chaos and terrified teenagers running for cover.
The mayor said investigators later concluded that no actual gunshots were fired, but if gunfire had been heard, the situation could have been much worse.
Betsy Branter Smith, a former police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association, said many problems start with parental neglect but are exacerbated by an environment where state laws and soft-skinned prosecutors prevent police from doing their jobs.
“At the end of the day, it’s a parenting issue, right? But you can’t regulate it or legislate it,” she said, “so business owners and tourists end up paying the price.”
Jersey Shore mayors are hoping the governor will help them combat a new problem of unaccompanied minors running wild in their coastal towns. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
But she pointed to several cities recently that have faced the same problem of unruly young people and solved it – spring break destinations like Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Gulf Shores in Alabama.
“They’ve adopted an absolute zero tolerance policy, not just with regards to disorder but with regards to alcohol use and so forth,” she said. “I think it’s great to see mayors and police leaders on the Jersey Shore talking about this and promoting, ‘we’re not going to tolerate this,’ and then putting that into practice.”
Meanwhile, cities like Washington, D.C. and Chicago continue to support “woke” prosecutors and policies, she said.
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“If you look at the spike in juvenile crime, this is serious crime,” Smith said. “You look at the teen takeover of Chicago. What Chicago is talking about right now is exactly what happened this weekend on the Jersey Shore. They’re preparing for it too. You have kids out there trying to wreak havoc knowing nothing’s going to happen.”
Mayors along the Jersey Shore have already begun campaigning, and Troiano said he’s praying the state will let officers do their jobs.
“The governor obviously took a shot at us by calling you directly,” he said, “but this is all about safety and making sure our businesses thrive through the summer.”
