First questions is, is your son a personally responsible young man? Can he easily be led into a bad situation of drinking or doing something not well thought out?

Second questions is, what do you consider “rowdy”?
I.E. “The local cruise strip, here is our city has many kid mostly honking, hooting/hollering and trying to meet young girls of similar age. We don’t think it’s rowdy and we let our son go cruising with his responsibly friends on the weekend.”
OR
“The local cruise strip, here is our city has many people adults and kid mostly drinking, honking, hooting/hollering and trying to meet girls, cops are regularly involved and we hear of situations about some fights or crime, but nothing really news worth… there young adults and it the cruise strip, We don’t think it’s too rowdy and we let our son go cruising with his responsibly friends on the weekend.

Now with that said, PCB and Destin are the first example. The cops DO pull kids over regularly but mostly for loud music, people hanging out the windows (hooting and hollering), or in the back of trucks seating on the edge, driving too slow and yes, some for drinking underage (a single beer here with all minors in the car will land the driver a night in jail, isn’t a permanent record from what I understand and mostly to scare the heck out of them!), and other little things… nothing on the scale of rape, murder, or mass drugs.

PCB and Destin, care about the well being of the family and do their best to keep spring break as safe as possible. PCB is more of the spring break destination for kids as it is spring break central and thus more kids are here, enjoying their youth.

Hope that help and please feel free the visit PanamaCityBeach.com to ask more questions.

Best regards,
Charles

To be clear, Steve is right. I do own a website called The Chocolate Mold Factory. The Chocolate Mold Factory is an informational website directed to people who are interested in confectionery arts and mold making. It provides free instruction on making custom chocolate molds. In addition, chocolate molds, books, mold making supplies, and mold making equipment can be purchased through Amazon.com, eBay and other companies with whom I am an affiliate.

I did not disclose it because to me it is a hobby related website that most people in PCB probably would not find very interesting. I became involved in making custom chocolate molds several years ago. When I became pregnant I had to discontinue my efforts because the process involves using chemicals. Now that we have a child, I simply don’t have the time to operate this as a business because it is very labor intensive work. Any income I receive from the affiliate relationships is very minor and believe me, does not cover the time I spend working on the site and answering questions from people all over the world.

I will end my Spring Break discussion on this note. My hopes for this town extend beyond tourism. I would love for the future PCB to be a place where people live and work year round. If all those condos were filled with people who actually live here, I heartly believe that PCB would become a more vibrant and economically stable community. That is what I referred to when I said a self-sustained economy. An economy that does is not dependent on the whims of tourists, but is able to support itself from the people within.

So, to the extent, if any, that Spring Break and the promotion of the party scene distracts from that goal, I believe that it is not in the best interest of the community. That is all I have been trying to say.

Thank you to those who have listened and engaged in this discussion. It is the free thinkers who will make this a better place.

Sincerly,

Christina Durta

Per our email conversation, I apologize for jumping to conclusions about The Chocolate Mold Factory. I should have contacted you instead of blasting you in this post. At any rate, I wish you well and hope I haven’t offended you beyond making amends.

Steve

Christina:
“We have absolutely no connection to any business in PCB.”

Visit this website:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/123559/christina_durta.html
“Affiliations: The Chocolate Mold Factory, Panama City Beach Spring Break Report”

Looks like the same Christina Durta to me.

So your statement about not being connected to any business in PCB was untrue??

That makes this statement untrue as well:
“Contrary to what some might think, my husband Bryan and I have spent alot of time trying to analyze this from an objective standpoint.”

Less money for Spring Break, more money to attract visitors that will benefit The Chocolate Mold Factory.. whatever your affiliation with them is.
http://www.gatheringguide.com/event_directory/fl_florida/vendor_party_favors_decorations_23873.html

Shame, shame.
You just lost all bit of credibility in my eyes… unless you have a really, really good explanation.

You almost had me fooled!

If I had the time to “figure all this out”, I’d get a job with the chamber or consult for the TDC. This a simple discussion, thus I used “simple” numbers garnered from what other posts had used above. At the end of the day (pun intended) neither one of us is right…because nobody really knows the true numbers as readily admitted by the TDC board. The Durta’s did much more work on their report, so use their numbers. I just don’t believe it would be impossible to replace SB’ers with families….and it’s just that, my humble opinion. As with anything it will take time, but I believe it’s time to get moving down that road.

The fact is it will not be easy to phase out Spring Break nor will it be easy to attract more families (if that’s the direction we go as a community). As my grandpa used to say…”if making money were easy, everybody would be rich!”

Just my humble opinion.

Chris

I however, disagree with many of the assumptions made in your report on how Spring Break affects our image or our overall tourism. Most of your assumptions are based on numbers that can be interpreted to support spring break just as easily as they can be used against it.

Props for being proactive, though. At least you stand up for what you believe and present your opinion very professionally. I wish more people would be as committed to research and professionalism as you were with your report. And I thank you for doing what you feel is the right thing for your community. I just don’t think SPring Break affects PCB as negatively as you claim in your report.