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Police monitor spring break revelers at Waikiki beach

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CTY FLASH MOB - 29 MARCH 2013 - Spring break revelers partied off shore from Kaimana Beach in Waikiki on Friday afternoon. Approximately 150 people showed up to the social media "flash mob" to form a flotilla of intertubes and other inflatables. The Honolulu Police Department and DNLR coordinated presence to monitor the event. Honolulu Star-Advertiser photo by Cindy Ellen Russell

Police arrested at least one man and issued citations to two dozen beachgoers for possessing alcohol at a public park in Waikiki today during an annual spring break fiesta known as Floatopia.

Honolulu Police Department Capt. Ryan Borges said police were monitoring social media websites to find out where the party would be this year, as it’s been held every spring break on Oahu for at least the previous two years. The party borrows its name from larger events in California, where attendees party on the beach and in the water on floating inflatable devices.

Organizers planned to hold the gathering at Magic Island, but a heavy police presence there deterred them and at about noon they moved the party to Kai­mana Beach, just Diamond Head of the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial, Borges said.

Officers followed the party, monitoring with all-terrain vehicles and bikes and on foot in the crowd. Plainclothes officers mingled, and officers with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources patrolled in the water. At one point five officers on personal watercraft surrounded several dozen revelers and their inflatable devices in near-shore waters.

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