Parties
Some parties have ended with arrests, but that isn’t deterring organizers from quickly moving on to the next bash.
At the Malley family’s Palm Beach mansion — five bedrooms, 7.5 baths on Clarendon Avenue with a pool and beach access — a video of the party circulating on the internet documents drug use. The video shows women in bikini tops drinking alcohol straight from the bottle and men opening beer cans by smashing them on their heads and then chugging.
“Too many people showed up. The cops came, and I said ‘I don’t know these people,’ and we shut it down,” said the property manager, who declined to give his full name.
StephToTrill speaks
Organizers are capitalizing on social media platforms — primarily Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram — to engage potential partyers.
A June 9 house party sprouted on Upland Road in West Palm Beach after flyers appeared advertising a D J and an entrance fee of $5 for men until 10 p.m. Women got in free.
Some parties are held in homes available for rent through vacation websites. And despite neighbors’ frustrations, local governments can’t ban these rentals. In Boynton Beach, for example, the city’s code is silent on it.
The group that marketed the Palm Beach mansion party also promoted the “Palmghanistan” mansion party in Boynton Beach in June, according to social media accounts.
The owner of the Boynton waterfront home was in Germany and had the property rented through the HomeAway website. He believed an author was vacationing in the home with his family.
Instead, about 500 people took over the property on the cul-de-sac of Northeast 15th Place on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Women were allowed in free and men paid $5 before 10 p.m., and $10 after.
That party was broken up by police after only 90 minutes, but the organizers had their cash.
“The parties happen maybe once a month,” said one of the party organizers, known as StephToTrill.
StephToTrill, who did not want his full name used in this story, said each party he’s involved in has two “party gods,” a D J and a person who secures the home. He said he is one of the “party gods.” When the group rents a house, they usually throw the party at the end of their stay. He said they charge entry fees but insists no drugs or alcohol are sold.
How does he find the homes?
“I know Realtors. I know a couple people. I’m in the game for a while. We make it happen,” he said.
The party organizers’ Instagram accounts have been silent on when and where the next party will be, but “best believe there will be another one,” he said.
‘We tore up Lox’
Steve Homrich said he might feel better about the rentals if his neighbor at the Boynton Beach home had a property manager on-site.
“You see 400 people walking down the street, it’s scary,” Homrich said.
But as in the Palm Beach situation, sometimes a property manager doesn’t guarantee security.
“The underage drinking is definitely a problem, and it’s just disrespectful,” said Chloe Hall, who called the police in April about a house shindig on 66th Court North in Loxahatchee. “I think it needs to be controlled better because nobody’s stopping it, really.”
StephToTrill said he thinks he and his group are no longer welcome in Loxahatchee.
“We tore up Lox for the last four months,” he said.
The party Hall called police about took place April 1 in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home.
“I was getting annoyed because it was late and I was tired and it was not stopping. There were cars all over the street. You could smell marijuana from my house. And it was loud and it was crazy,” Hall said.
Palm Beach County sheriff ’s deputies were dispatched to the home and arrested 25-year-old Christian Sanchez on a charge of open house party. About 150 people were at the party — which charged a $5 entrance fee — and a deputy spotted two people under 21 drop alcohol and run. The deputy also smelled marijuana, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
That was one of many organized by a group including one man Hall’s niece knew and followed on Snapchat.
“Over the last school year and this summer there were probably over a dozen parties,” Hall said.
At one party in December on Valencia Boulevard in Loxahatchee, deputies arrested a 48-yearold woman for allowing the house party. Diana Irizarry was arrested on a charge of open house party. She stood by while a 21-year-old collected $5 from each of the 300 to 400 attendees, according to court records.
A few months later at the Boynton Beach bash, StephToTrill described the party as “the biggest house party Palm Beach County has ever seen.”
Neighbors complained that strangers had taken over their cozy single-family home neighborhood.
Some partygoers parked in the lots on Federal Highway and walked down the street to where the home sits. Other vehicles were on neighbors’ lawns. Neighbors could hear music and chanting orchestrated by the party’s D J through their hurricane-impact windows. The crowd topped out at about 500.
“We made a couple thousand. The party started at 9 and ended at 10:30,” he said. “We’re making what people make in a month in an hour and a half.”