News

New Boardwalk Policies Imposed on New Jersey’s Second Best Beach

By Kyle Pagan

Published: Jun 3rd, 2024 · 10:40 AM EDT

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Fresh off of losing to Wildwood in the top-10 beaches poll from USA Today, Ocean City imposed new ordinances for those rabble-rousers stabbing people on the boardwalk.  According to Chris O’Connell at Fox 29, the new policy is a lot like last summer’s. No backpacks after 8 p.m. and an  11 p.m. curfew for kids:

The chaos forced city leaders to announce big changes to keep peace this summer, beginning with an 11 p.m. curfew for kids under 18 and backpacks on the boardwalk will be banned between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.

The OC mayor made it a point in his press conference that the teens who wreaked havoc in Ocean City crossed over the bridge into the town. Like George Washington surprising the British on Christmas, the yuppies in America’s Greatest Resort Town were stunned by hooligans from Mays Landing, Atlantic City, and elsewhere who apparently set the fight up. It’s basically the Warriors vs. the Rogues out there.

But can we take a step back for a second? Am I the only one who finds it kind of funny that teenagers have been the biggest threat to the beach community recently? You’d think the Mayor of Ocean City would lie awake at night thinking about shark attacks or the Giant Ferris Wheel at Gillians coming loose and rolling into the ocean. Not a bunch of kids who don’t even have their Learner’s Permit with knives running up and down the boardwalk. Obviously, stabbings are a more serious case and you can point to the Governor handcuffing police and being lax on issuing fines to teens as a reason why this issue is getting more and more out of hand. But I can’t help but laugh thinking about the mayor in his beautiful shore house slamming his fist on the island and wondering what he’s going to do with these damn teenagers! This was supposed to be the easiest government position in the country and now it’s being thwarted by kids who don’t even remember the Phillies last World Series title.

What’s wrong honey? 

It’s those damn teenagers again! 

And it’s not just Ocean City. They’re just fun to pick on. Over in Wildwood the police said they received over 1,500 calls to police, issued thousands of warnings, and arrested 47 kids before declaring a State of Emergency and shut the boardwalk down the Sunday of MDW. Seaside Heights had false reports of shots fired as well.

So listen, I don’t know if things have gotten worse over the last two decades, but I know when I was growing up there were similar problems like this at church carnivals and on the boardwalk. Rumors of the goth kid pulling a knife on someone (it was always the goth kid) or a teenager getting drunk and acting unruly were commonplace growing up. Now that people get to see it more due to social media the problem has seemed to be exacerbated. I mean, my babysitter’s brother was stabbed to death on the Wildwood Boardwalk back in the early-2000s. Two weeks ago is the first time I can remember hearing about a stabbing on the boardwalk since. So who knows what the solution is or how it can be solved. Because it’s not like just focusing on the boardwalk as crime picked up in OC when police focused on the boardwalk. Maybe the whipper-snappers are just up to no good nowadays with their SnapFace and GramTok. Maybe every shore town needs to build a wall* and place armed guards at the border. I’m just gonna sit here and root for a teeny bit more chaos so those property values decrease and I can buy the dip!

*Kinkead: and have the shoobies pay for it