There is a different look to spring break in Miami Beach this year, as hordes of students descend from around the country for the annual ritual of sunshine and youthful hedonism.
The palm trees, soft sands and cool blue Atlantic waters that draw tens of thousands to the month-long party are still there. Except now they’re obscured by scores of armed law enforcement officers, many sent at the behest of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
Unprecedented images of South Beach almost as a military zone, combined with $100 car parking, alcohol bans, bar and beach closures and curfews, are hardly the impression that the usually tourism-friendly Miami Beach would wish to project.
