DEWEY BEACH, DE - The Dewey Beach Police Department announced last night in a Facebook post that they have made an agreement with the businesses in the lot off of Dagsworthy Avenue to step up their enforcement. According to the post, the lot has previously had issues with young people heading there at night, reportedly causing problems for residents and businesses.
Previously – since the lot was private property, the department could not enforce it unless specifically called.
Now, officers have an “Agency of Property” where officers can now warn, and potentially detain loiterers for trespassing. Previously, they just had a large “NO LOITERING” sign.
17 year old Connor Lee has hung out late night in the parking lot, and says he’s not surprised things are cracking down
“I’ve never seen anything crazy, but I know there is always a lot of riff raff going on in the parking lot – always a lot of people, younger people like my age here.”
The new agreement comes just days before the town is expected to adjust the town curfew for minors – making it 11PM to 5AM everyday and increasing fines from 100 to 300 dollars.
Dewey Beach Commissioner Paul Bauer says the new agreement, and the curfew, is simply to keep the town safe.
“We wanna give our police the ability, give them the tools to do their job. But we really need to inform first, we want to inform people, we want people to have a great time here, but we also have to be respectful of everybody.”
A loitering crackdown for the popular beach town.