Jackson: Tying up loose ends
For those of you who read my column about spring break research two weeks ago and have been waiting anxiously to learn what I found in the Panama City Beach City Hall, here it is.
Your will recall that I went down to discover whether or not the Feb. 17, 1960, story in The Mobile Press Register was true. The newspaper reported that since “several hundred Alabama teenagers” were expected to descend on the coast for the upcoming AEA holidays, the mayors of Panama City Beach, Long Beach and Edgewater Beach “have joined in the move to ban the sale . . . of all beer and alcoholic beverages” when the students were down. Moreover, the article added that the ban had been in place every year since 1954.
This raised my interest on a couple of levels.
First, it indicated that even before the movie “Where the Boys Are” came out in 1960, and supposedly sent everyone scrambling for spring break at the beach, Alabama students were migrating down to the coast. The movie may have inspired more to come, but Alabama teens were ahead of the game.
Second, it revealed that Alabama students were such a problem for coastal communities that their mayors were willing to shut down a major source of revenue to restore peace and tranquility.
But was it true?
The only way to find out for sure was to take part of MY spring break and go to the Panama City Beach City Hall and go through the minutes of the city commission to see if there was any official action. And if there was nothing there, go through the newspapers of the period to see if any joint announcement was reported.
So I did.
And this is what I found.
On Feb. 10, 1960, a week before the Mobile newspaper announced the call for a ban, the Panama City Beach city commission met. Appearing before them was a representative from the local Junior Chamber of Commerce to tell the group of “a plan for supervised activities for the teenagers who will visit the beach during AEA convention”—something to keep the little darlings occupied and out of trouble.
And what might those “supervised activities be”? According to the report there were “tentative plans” for a “beauty pageant, talent show, fishing contest and treasure hunt.” There would also be a dance, which the city commission voted $150 to underwrite.
All very clean. All very proper. All proving that adults didn’t have a clue.
Nevertheless, there it was. Proof that Alabama teens did spring break at the beach before the movie made spring breaking popular.
The commission went through a few more items of business, then they took up an ordinance “making it unlawful for one to serve or sell alcoholic beverages to a person under twenty-one years of age,” which passed unanimously—and raised the interesting question, why were they outlawing what Florida law already outlawed? Was it to make political points or as a warning to the Alabama teenagers?
Even more interesting was that the week before a similar ordinance was read, only it added that it would also be “unlawful for one to misrepresent their age” in order to purchase alcoholic beverages.
A real blow to the “Fake ID industry.”
Only a “Fake ID” lobbyist must have gotten to the commission, because that prohibition was dropped from the final ordinance, so only the seller and the server would feel the heavy hand of the law.
Nothing about a ban.
But the minutes were pretty sketchy, so the next day I scooted over to the Bay County Public Library and went through the Feb. 1960 newspaper.
Nothing.
Unless it was not reported, or reported somewhere I overlooked, there wasn’t a ban. The mayors may have expressed a wish, a desire, that businesses quit selling, but I could find nothing official. And when I asked around, people who were in business down there back then said they had never heard of such.
So what can I conclude?
Most likely whoever sent the story to the Mobile paper assumed the city commission action on supporting “supervised activities” and the ordinance prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors was part of the same effort and wrote it up that way.
Who knows, it might have been.
All of which gets back to the original point. From what was reported in Mobile, and what was recorded in the minutes, it is apparent that in 1960 Alabama teenagers were going to the beach during AEA, that they had been going for a while, and that based on past experience local leaders wanted to channel their energies into something more acceptable to grown-ups.
And if history is any judge, those efforts failed.
But at least I got that loose end tied up.
Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson is Eminent Scholar in History at Jacksonville State University. He can be reached at [email protected].
