Police on Grand Bahama have launched an initiative called, “Operation Spring Break”, which they said is intended to ensure the safety of the more than 10,000 spring breakers expected to visit the island over the next two months.
Police officials said officers will be on patrol in areas frequented by spring breakers.
One police official explained that the objective of the initiative is to prevent illegal drugs from being sold to students and prevent crimes against spring breakers.
Inspector Stephanie Rahming, who is stationed at the Lucaya Police Station, told The Bahama Journal, “In addition to our regular patrols, we have added additional sets of patrols particularly for spring break where we would have an overlapping shift of officers working.”
She said both plain clothes and uniformed officers will be involved in the effort, and added that patrols will extend into the wee hours of the mornings.
“We will have a no tolerance approach to persons who want to lurk around and sell drugs to the tourists or [to] the spring breakers,” Inspector Rahming said. “We want to make them aware that we will not tolerate whatsoever any kind of loitering and any kind of illegal activities.”
She assured, “The police presence will be felt. We will be there in full force [to ensure] persons are arrested and dealt with if they are there to commit a crime.”
Inspector Rahming said police also will refuse to tolerate disorderly behaviour from spring breakers.
“Disorderly behaviour is an offence in The Bahamas,” she reminded. “The officers are trained and they will use their discretion. If [a situation occurs] that is totally out of control, persons would be arrested, brought to the station and may be charged.”
Inspector Rahming noted that where certain situations are not “black and white”, the police may decide to take a different approach.
She also warned establishments that sell alcohol to do so legally.
“We would like for operators of liquor license premises [and] those persons who are going to be selling liquor to [spring breakers] to ensure that persons are selling alcoholic beverages to adults,” Inspector Rahming said.
“The legal drinking age is 18 years, but sometimes we get high school students who get mixed up in the crowd [and] we cannot tell their age. What we want them to do is to ask for some kind of identification before they serve alcoholic beverages to these persons to avoid under-age drinking in The Bahamas.”
By: Daphne McIntosh, The Bahama Journal
