A hot summer brought large crowds to Malibu beaches, leading to a record number of alcohol on the beach and parking citations, according to Malibu's Beach Enforcement Team.
From June to September, the beach team issued 2,379 citations for alcohol on the beach this year compared to 1,985 in 2011.
"This summer was hot, really hot in the valley so therefore people chose to go to the beach," said Sgt. Fray Lupian, who heads the team and is assigned to the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff's Station. "Some people know it's not OK, and some people do know that they can't drink there, but they take a chance."
The team is made up of eight deputies, a sergeant and a traffic deputy. Six of the deputies are assigned to Zuma Beach, while others are sent to "pocket beaches," such as El Matador Beach, Surfrider Beach and Corral Beach, according to Lupian.
The deputies, which received additional training this summer from a veteran deputy, were armed with alcohol screening devices, which have been in use for the last three years.
"Each team has an alcohol screening device. They wave it over the drink and it shows if it is positive or negative for alcohol," Lupian said. "... People do get defensive about you putting your nose in their beverage."
The team also saw an increase in the number of parking citations issued. This year 4,682 tickets were written compared to 4,122 in 2011. The numbers do not include tickets written by Secural, which was hired by the City of Malibu to help with enforcement.
Lupian also said he hired a motorcycle deputy with a good track record for actively writing tickets to monitor traffic along the popular beaches.
"I can have a motor just sit on a corner and watch traffic go by, or I can have a motor actively go around and look for violations," he said.
Just having a presence at the beaches helped to make sure there were no major incidents this summer, according to Lupian.
"People see us at the beach. I tell my deputies, 'You've just got to go around, be visible,'" Lupian said.
He said the purpose is to make sure Malibu beaches are family friendly.
"People do thank us for it. It's a family oriented beach," Lupian said.
He said that because of the high volume of people coming to the beach, he noticed trash cans overflowed quickly.
"The more volume the people you have, the more trash you are going to have. That's just a given. There was trash. It's not because people were dirty. Obviously some people leave their trash there," Lupian said.
Here are all the stats for the Beach Enforcement Team:
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Hazardous Traffic Citations 2,176 1,954 2,294 1,368 1,749 1,835 Non-Hazardous Traffic Citations 266 270 233 118 82 70 Parking Citations 4,682 4,122 4,196 2,956 2,069 2,500 Towed Vehicles 440 412 856 702 465 537 Alcohol on the Beach Citations 2,379 1,985 1,760 1,908 1,591 1,764 Smoking on the Beach Citations 4 17 19 30 11 25 Miscellaneous Misdemeanor Violations 30 35 23 49 52 77 Miscellaneous Infraction Violations 73 107 39 93 54 28 Miscellaneous Felony Violations 7 7 2 0 0 0 Warrants 35 20 0 0 0 0 Felony Arrests 7 7 2 4 1 4 Misdemeanor Arrests 53 35 23 11 9 14 Lost Children Reunited 258 71 62 19 17 23