Sheriff's Office gears up for Spring Break crowds

Siesta Key residents deal with traffic year-round, and during Spring Break season, tourists get a taste as well. 

“There’s only so much land here to begin with, and God’s not making anymore,” Sarasota County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Mruczek said.

Mruczek has worked on Siesta Key for about four years and knows that residents and tourists both will complain about traffic and crowds. March and April were the most-attended months in 2017 for the Siesta Key public beach, according to county attendance figures. March saw 283,000 visitors, and April saw 277,000. About 166,000 visited the beach in February, 2017.

The public lot at the beach has almost 1,000 parking spots, and they can fill up early. A $105 fine awaits people trying to reserve a spot for a friend, so Mruczek recommends ride-sharing programs, the Breeze Trolley or bikes to get around instead.

This will be the first Spring Break season since the debut of MTV’s "Siesta Key" reality show in July of last year. Some residents feared that the show, which follows several young adults who live on the Key as they struggle with relationship dramas, would attract a more rowdy crowd to Siesta Key. Visit Sarasota President Virginia Haley said in the past she doesn’t expect the show to have any effect on the Key’s usual visitors.

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Aside from increased traffic, the Sheriff’s Office prepares for Spring Break with messaging for tourists — reminding them of some “common sense” safety tips. Among them: No glass on the beach, no open containers on public rights of way, lock your vehicles, hide valuables.

Mruczek said there will be more deputies patrolling, on the lookout for things such as underage drinking and drunken driving.

Perhaps the most serious issue that often pops up over March and April are reports of missing children on the Key. Mruczek said it’s not uncommon for people to lose track of their children, and recommends that people who come to the beach in particular take a photo of their kids in their current outfit in the morning, so a deputy or lifeguard can quickly help parents locate their kids.

Overall, Mruczek said the Sheriff’s Office works to make sure everyone can have a fun and safe vacation over the next couple of months.

“Our goal is to have an uneventful Spring Break.”