0 PANAMA CITY BEACH − A decades-old effort effort to boost tourism on the Beach continues to pose annual challenges not just for local officials, but also for residents and visitors caught in the crossfire. Blessed with white sands, emerald waters and southern hospitality, the Panama City Beach area has made a name for itself as a highly traveled tourism destination in the U.S. However, its popularity has not always been fueled by the best publicity. From about the 1980s until the early 2010s, PCB grew into being known as a spring break capital in the U.S. Though this brought many tourists to the area, boosting the local economy for a season, it began to leave the city with a reputational black eye as the party grew out of hand. While officials enacted a wave of ordinances in about 2015 as damage control, the spring break season continues to cause issues for Panama City Beach and Bay County today. According to Mike Thomas, a longtime local official, PCB and Bay County leaders were busy in the 1960s and 1970s trying to figure out ways to increase tourism and boost the local economy. Thomas noted that at that time, peak tourist season only lasted about 90 days during the summer. He s
