Daytona Beach's Main Street becomes party central Saturday with 8th annual Crawfish & More Festival

Headline Surfer photos by Sera Frederick / Young partiers had no worries about drinking in public during Saturday's Crawfish & More Festival on Main Street in Daytona Beach. The cops were looking the other way.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A young group of people were trying to get a a middle-aged man's macaw to drink some beer.

It was party central Saturday night on Main Street with hundreds enjoying themselves and they didn't have to stay inside the bars to enjoy the cold brew, many drinking from large plastic see-through pitchers.

After all, it was the eighth-annual "Crawfish & More Festival."

And even though public drinking is against the city's ordinance, the cops looked the other way Asked by Headline Surfer if the public drinking was legal, one of two female cops on foot patrol said "technically no," but because the bar owners had a permit to close the street to vehicular traffic, no tickets were being issued.

Main Street was far less crowded Saturday night during the Crawfish & More Festival.

In the inset photo, a young bar maid sells beer in the middle of the street closed to motor vehicles.

Main Street was blocked to vehicular traffic from the entrance with Atlantic Avenue and a couple blocks from the drawbridge on the other end.

And while nobody was disorderly, there were more than a few people seen staggering in the middle of the street. The event was sponsored by Daytona Beach Main Street Entertainment with funding from taxpayer-supported Daytona Beach Community Redevelopment Agency grants.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal had its subscription tent on Main Street during Saturday's crawfish festival.

Trash was thrown on the sidewalk as shown in this photo.

The daylong party, began at noon an running to 1 a.m. Sunday. It is expected to pick up again noon today until as billed, "there's no more Creole Crustaceans to feast on."

The organizers told the News-Journal in a promotional story hyping the event that 5,000 tons of crawfish was ordered for the two-day event. The newspaper never mentioned anything about beer, instead using the word "beverages."