Frank Hechman doesn't see a 'negative' in kids exposed to New Year's Eve drinking crowd

Beachside Neighborhood Watch leader says 20,000 attended Main Street Block party

Video produced by Multimedia Editor Serafina Frederick / Frank Hechman, head of the Beachside Neighborhood Watch, reacts with glees to the New Year's Eve block party on Main Street, estimating 20,000 people showed up. Click the video to watch what he had to say.
 

DAYTONA BEACH -- Frank Hechman, the elder statesman of the Beachside Neighborhood Watch was more jovial than acerbic in giving his reaction to the New Year's Eve beach ball drop and the huge crowd.

Hechman and other officials estimated the crowd at a clear 20,000, and if that turns out to be the case, that would rival or possibly top the largest Bike Week crowds here on a Friday or Saturday night during the 10-day spring motorcycle rally that has drawn upwards of half a million bikers countywide.

Hechman was asked point blank just a minute or two after the ball descended in ushering in 2013, if he was concerned at all about the exposure of kids to an event where the consumption of alcohol was foremost, and the obvious precursor to adult socializing themes.

Though some in the crowd were eager to have the alcohol loosen them up more quickly.

"We have had little to no problems," Hechman said of crowd behavior and his response to scores of children, literally several hours past their bed time and exposed to some heavy drinking, with the after-hours party scene, including a live rock band on stage that was loud.

Then again, it wasn't necessarily adult strangers, drinking, but in some cases babies and toddlers held by parents in one hand and a bottle of Bud in the other.

Those too big to carry, but not old enough to venture on their own simply followed their parents around, though, an hour before the countdown, there was little opportunity to move, let alone wander. Lots of teenagers were there as well, minus the parents.

Hechman said he didn't see the drinking as a bad thing: "I really don't that that's a negative. I really don't."

Then again, he wasn't in the thick of things in the middle of Main Street, closed to vehicular traffic eith a special permit allowing consumption of alchol on the public street.

Hechman, who likes to play Robin to Chitwood's Batman, schmoozed with him and other cops, though he also sat in his  "citizens patrol" car for periods of time, too.

Always the good steward, Hechman clutched held a bottle of water, adding Chitwood would not be pleased to see him drinking in uniform. When the parents bring their children out they know...