operation spring cleaning brevard county arrests

Ron Jon’s was no more than a little surf shack on the pier. Old Florida surfers like my Dad that remember the way it used to be. Sometimes I hear lore from the previous generation. The gorgeous side of the Space Coast - Sebastian Inlet. Maybe the town truly did fall deeper into a perpetual haze of Spring Break parties. Maybe I’m the one that changed, and it was my sugar-coated teenage memories that led to my utter disappointment of Cocoa Beach.

I found bags of Lay’s potato chips and styrofoam cups floating in the water, cigarette butts and crumpled beer cans lining the shores, and the kind of people that thoughtlessly added to mess. When I returned many years later to the place where I learned to surf, I expected to find the paradise I remembered.

Then I grew up and ventured beyond the shores of Central Florida. I know this town, well enough.Ĭlearly, I did my share of contributing to the trash of Cocoa Beach in my youth. I’ve jumped off the end of the pier during a hurricane to score some major swell. I’ve been woken up and solicited for drugs while napping in my Jeep Wrangler between surf sessions. I’ve had a trigger happy cop pull his gun on my friends and I while searching our Camaro for weed - unsuccessfully. I’ve walked into the wrong seedy motel off A1A and seen things my sheltered eyes were not prepared to behold. I’ve blown several Publix paychecks on the casino cruises that sail from those dark shores. See, once upon a time, Cocoa Beach was my paradise. It’s where the cockroaches of society gather to spread STD’s and sell meth to the bums sleeping at Jetty Park. It’s where every trailer park rose with a tramp stamp and deadbeat dad unite because they couldn’t afford a ticket to Vegas. It’s where all the bros and sluts of the southeast congregate to abandon their last shreds of dignity on Spring Break. If you were to hold a black light over the state of Florida, Cocoa Beach would be a shining beacon of debauchery. For those of us that grew up surfing those dirty waves, we know the truth - Cocoa Beach is trashy. Their billboards litter the road side like cigarette butts in the sand at, well… Cocoa Beach.įor the ill informed, the billboards and advertising paint Cocoa Beach as a sophisticated, tropical paradise along the Space Coast of Florida. Closer to the Florida state line, Cocoa Beach starts to join in the fun. There’s an abundance of billboards for anti-abortion, adult superstores, “spas” with trucker parking, and my personal favorite, “Hell? …Oh, I forgot about that.” It’s like Jesus and the Devil are duking it out for advertising space. It’s a long drive, and checking out the billboards to pass the time is a good way to lose all faith in humanity. I was recently driving back to Florida after an awesome week in the mountains of North Georgia with my fiance.

Operation spring cleaning brevard county arrests