PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — With Memorial Day weekend coming up, you can expect to see more law enforcement on the beaches in Pinellas County making sure everyone follows the social distancing rules laid out by the CDC.
"I think it’s been a success so far, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with some stress and anxiety as a police chief to try to make sure we get there," Clearwater Police Chief Daniel Slaughter said.
Slaughter says Clearwater Beach hasn’t reached maximum capacity yet, but there have been days when it’s been close. They’ve had to close off entrances, but he says they haven’t had to cite or arrest anyone for violating social distancing rules. He hopes they can keep it that way this weekend.
"In our stretch, it will be 15-20 officers, then a significant number of civilian support staff as well, what we call our ambassador program, along with our lifeguards," he said.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office had 300 deputies patrolling the beaches over Mother’s Day weekend. They scaled back that number this past weekend, cutting back to 125 deputies, but they’ll ramp back up to 300 again for this holiday weekend.
It’ll be up to the sheriff to figure out how to continue enforcing social distancing on the beaches after that, and he’ll take into consideration how well things go over the holiday.
"I can tell you that I am happy and glad and more than willing to put forth this effort that were putting forth, to make this successful. But this is not sustainable forever. We can't do this with hundreds of deputies out there, and continue to do it we do throughout the summer," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
Clearwater’s chief says he’ll keep additional officers out monitoring the beach through labor day weekend.
10 Tampa Bay asked who would make the call to completely shut down beaches if that were to happen.
The sheriff’s office said that would be up to The Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners but say they’re doing everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
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