Topless Jeep Weekend brings cash, chaos and complaints to Bolivar Peninsula

Between Thursday and Sunday, 305 people were booked into the Galveston County Jail.

According to the sheriff, 125 of those arrests were made on Bolivar Peninsula.

The Wednesday before the four-day Topless Jeep Weekend began, only one arrest was made on the Peninsula.

Longtime cops in Galveston County describe the chaos brought on by the topless jeep weekend as a blast from the past.

"Because pre-Hurricane Ike, this would be like a normal heavy weekend," said Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset.

The hard partying-crowd and a high tide left little space to move on Crystal Beach. All the drinking brought on fights and car crashes.

"They had over 600 calls for service on the Bolivar Peninsula during that four-day window," the sheriff said.

The Galveston County Sheriff's Department manned the event like a holiday weekend. On Saturday,  more than 50 deputies were on overtime.

"There was a point Saturday evening around 5, 6 o'clock I called the DPS to send in more troopers," Trochesset said.

"All of us, we had a tremendous weekend. Very few businesses I talked to had a bad one," said Russell Standridge, owner of Latitude 29.2 Souvenir Shop. "You always get some bad apples to show up, and we had a lot of those but still all around it was good."

"Several individuals fell out of vehicles, one the same vehicle ran over him, one was struck by another vehicle," said the sheriff.

The event has some Crystal Beach residents conducting an online petition, hoping to prevent the topless jeep crowd from returning to the peninsula next year.

"I'm not sure how they can do that without going to Austin and having the laws changed," Trochesset said. 

"There's no association nothing that says this group is here," Stamdridge said. "There all let's go meet at the beach how can you stop that?"