THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608030001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty
LENGTH: 77 lines
Several years ago, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf joked that her bare toes had never touched the sand.
Everyone laughed, because it seemed so surprising that the city's biggest booster wasn't a big fan of the beach scene.
But that's the way it is for locals. We came here for many different reasons, and you can love Virginia Beach without loving the beach.
Those of us who are local beach lovers tend to stay away from the Resort Strip and all the places tourists herd to in the summer. You'll find natives sunning at the North End, Croatan and Sandbridge, while the beaches along the Boardwalk are turned over to tourists after Memorial Day.
So, as reports began to filter into the newspaper in the past few weeks of trouble at the Oceanfront, it seemed plausible. Most of us don't spend much time there. We heard of rowdy crowds and an edgy atmosphere. It sounded ominously familiar to those of us who covered Greekfest back in the '80s.
One source of the rumors was Virginia Beach's most famous disgruntled tourist, Ted E. Lee of Reynoldsburg, Ohio. He came to the beach this summer with his wife and son. He wrote a letter to the editor detailing his horrendous vacation.
``We couldn't believe the gangs of preteen and teenage youths that now roam Atlantic Avenue using the filthiest language; male and female youths grabbing and groping each other in public, bumping and pushing into pedestrians and not even caring,'' he wrote.
When his letter was published, Mr. Lee received a rash of phone calls from city officials and resort promoters, apologizing for his ruined holiday and offering him all manner of freebies if he'd give us one more chance. The poor guy swore that, yes, he'd come back someday - if everyone would just stop phoning him.
After reading Mr. Lee's letter and interviewing merchants and innkeepers on the Resort Strip, a worrisome picture began to emerge: Terrified tourists. Starving shopkeepers. Marauding bands of punks.
``They're rude with an attitude,'' said one innkeeper. ``It's hell down here.''
``Tourists are prisoners in their hotel rooms,'' one shopkeeper declared.
``I might as well close up at 8 o'clock,'' another added. ``I don't do business after then because no one can make their way through the crowds.
``Come out here any Friday or Saturday night and you'll see what a mess it is,' he challenged.
OK. What reporter wouldn't want a chance to visit hell when it is supposedly smoldering so close to home?
So, last Friday night a reporter and I did just that.
And we were astonished by what we found: The whole area was quite pleasant.
We arrived on 26th Street at 10 p.m. - just about the time we were told the street scene really changed in both color and character.
Instead we found scores of families - both white and black - strolling the strip, eating ice cream, pushing babies and - spending money. They looked for all the world like tourists having fun.
``Any minute now they're going to head for their cells, I mean hotel rooms,'' my cohort wisecracked.
They were in no hurry. But as the night wore on, the families did eventually give way to a younger crowd. After midnight the sidewalks were alive with 18-to-25-year-olds, many black, some white. Everyone seemed happy.
The language we heard that night merited a shrug on my obscenity scale. I did hear the F word a few times, but not as frequently as I'd heard it in the newsroom earlier that day.
Belligerent? Not at all. No one jostled or bumped into us. The doorways to shops were wide open until closing time. Business seemed brisk.
The police presence was considerable. Mounted police, bicycle police, the chaplain corps and who knows how many undercover cops were on the streets. But they didn't seem to be issuing many summonses - mainly because no one seemed to be breaking the law.
Far from it. These kids more or less ignored a couple of middle-aged white people stifling yawns as they patrolled the sidewalks from 17th to 26th Streets until 2 a.m.
After four uneventful hours on the strip, on a breezy, balmy Friday night in high summer - we decided to pack it in.
Locals who have shunned the Resort Strip since Memorial Day ought to check it out. Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
by CNB