DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Volusia County Sheriff is looking to enforce a few bans along the county’s beach. One would be against trucks altered to the “Carolina squat” style, where they’re tall in the front and lower in the back. The other is against tents on the beach.
Sheriff Mike Chitwood said it’s been two months since his deputies took over law enforcement of the beach and he said in those two months, his deputies have seen several issues with breaking the rules there.
“If there’s something down there that’s going to endanger public safety or endangering public safety and we can change through ordinances to get enforcement compliance that’s what we want to do,” said Sheriff Chitwood.
The sheriff said when it comes to the four-sided, fully-enclosed tents on the beach, deputies are finding more trouble in them than people just wanting shade.
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“We’ve made over two dozen arrests for lude and lascivious, unregistered sex offenders, unregistered predators down there, people doing things in those tents, I mean, Narcan deployed five times down there,” said the sheriff.
The three-sided tents would be fine. Chitwood also said deputies would have discretion when it comes to tents for children.
The second ban would be on ‘Carolina Squat’ trucks.
Chitwood said they want to prevent someone from getting hit by a driver that couldn’t see them over their dashboard. The trucks are lifted high in the front and are lowered in the back.
He said technically, some of these modified trucks aren’t even street-legal.
“You can get pulled over. There are certain specifications that go with that driving it on the street. We look at Virginia and North Carolina, they’re banned from the street,” said the sheriff.
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