VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Thousands of people enjoyed the sand and surf, filling our Volusia County coastline and keeping law enforcement busy.
We rode along with the sheriff’s office as deputies patrolled the waterways.
Sgt. Matt Seltzer said holiday weekends are notorious for bringing new boaters to the area.
“I’ve seen more boats that I’ve never seen before and you ask yourself where are you coming from, why here and is all your equipment right and properly working?” said Seltzer.
It’s the first Memorial Day weekend since the Boaters’ Freedom Act became law. It requires law enforcement to have probable cause before doing safety checks on vessels.
Seltzer said in Volusia County, the Marine Unit has always operated that way but the change does put more responsibility on the boaters. Over the past three days, he’s seen several boaters working on their motors or getting towed back to docks.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard rescued seven people on Saturday after their boat stalled 22 miles off the coast of New Smyrna Beach.
“If a boat goes down in the channel, you have a lot of boat traffic coming, you can have some serious issues and possibly a boating crash,” said Seltzer.
The heavy patrols are meant to prevent those things from happening. Law enforcement looks out for everything from people consuming too much alcohol to having the proper registration.
“Unfortunately, it does maybe hit the pocket a little bit but you know word starts to spread that law enforcement is out here making sure that all the waterways are safe,” said Seltzer.
The Volusia Sheriff’s Office doesn’t do it alone. We saw New Smyrna Beach police, Daytona Beach Police, FWC and the Coast Guard out on the water today.
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