Wildwoods Police Department issued a warning to the public on social media today about an unsanctioned beach pop up party being promoted for this weekend.

It's the type of event Shore town mayors say they're having to deal with more frequently.

Along with teen rowdiness on Boardwalk.

That's already led to dozens of arrests before the summer has even gotten to full swing.

How to handle those disturbances was the topic of a hearing today with local and state leaders.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz reports.

Tourism at the show is a $50 billion industry and scenes like this just aren't good for business.

On a virtual hearing organized by Republican Senator Mike Testa, public officials from Ocean City and Wildwood vented their frustration in what at times sounded a little bit like a scene out of Footloose.

Young individuals who were openly smoking marijuana, openly drinking alcoholic beverages that we know are illegal for them to consume, especially in places of public.

I tend to believe that a lot of parents just don't really they don't understand or want to believe, you know, what their kids are actually doing here.

Some of them I mean, some of the kids almost make.

But officials ping pong between things are out of control to things are not that bad.

The hearing was long on hand-wringing, but short on specifics.

Is it the breakdown of social norms?

Are the parents to blame?

Are police being handcuffed?

Yes.

To all.

According to those on the virtual hearing, like Jody Levchuk councilman in Ocean City, where someone was stabbed in a boardwalk fight over the Memorial Day weekend.

It is the perception.

The perception is is 100 times worse than the reality.

Of course, you know, the reality is, is we are a wildly safe town.

This this stabbing was amongst a group of people who knew each other.

They had an altercation.

It had nothing to do with the safety of our town.

It wasn't a random person walking down the boardwalk who who got stabbed or mugged or something like that.

Maybe there should be a law in where the parents I just call two parents put in prison because their kid took a gun and shot somebody.

Maybe that needs to be handled in that manner.

Also used to be on the side of every police guard to protect and to serve.

We have to give them the tools, the law enforcement, to allow them to protect us, allow them to serve their communities.

Which locals and tourists alike would likely agree with.

But Jim Sullivan of the ACLU says not if that means you pin a criminal record on every kid who acts like a jerk on the boardwalk, which police admit is the most common crime committed by teens on the boardwalk.

Criminalizing Youth study after study shows how damaging that is to use right?

It one doesn't solve the problem that we're purporting to what we want to fix, but it also leads to worse outcomes for for youth that are criminalized.

Right.

Many of them end up in the adult system.

And that's not the route we want to go.

Right.

I think that there are alternatives to criminalizing youth when we're having problems down the shore.

A panel of Republican lawmakers and officials from Republican districts can't help but have a partizan sheen.

Democratic Senator Vin Gopal said he passed on an invite to join in the last.

You know, I know Senator Tester was out at a press conference with Governor murphy in Monmouth County at our boardwalk a couple of weeks ago to praise the boardwalk funds.

So how much of this is is politics, do you think, Senator?

Probably all of it.

Tester says the panel will meet again and he'll push for tougher laws on kids who drink or smoke on the boardwalk or the beach, and that he'll try to make parents more directly responsible for the actions of their children.

But as to the age old question, what's the matter with kids today?

No one on the mostly middle aged panel seemed to have an answer for that one.

I'm David Cruz.

NJ Spotlight News.