Arrests at Santa Barbara’s annual unsanctioned Deltopia street party rose for the fourth straight year this weekend, more than doubling the number of arrests from 2024, authorities said.
Isla Vista’s weekend-long Deltopia party, which draws thousands of local college students to raucous festivities near the beach, has seen arrests and citations grow each year since 2021, according to stats released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
This year, 84 people were arrested and 485 people were given citations. In 2024, there were 32 arrests and 254 citations. The year before that there were 23 arrests and 151 citations.
While Friday night was fairly calm, the activities of the weekend ramped up on Saturday, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Saturday saw a significant increase in both crowd size and emergency medical calls, most of which were related to alcohol intoxication,” the office said in a statement released Monday. “Deputies and officers coordinated with fire and medical teams, using pre-planned rescue units to respond to calls and clear roads in densely packed areas, ensuring swift access for ambulances. Thankfully, there were no reported fatalities from cliff falls or fentanyl overdoses. There were no injuries to law enforcement officials or uses of force.”
The most serious arrest last weekend came when officers stopped a group of people on Saturday morning on Marketplace Drive as the group headed toward Deltopia. One of the members of the group was in possession of a loaded gun, the sheriff’s office said.
Officials also arrested six as part of a monthlong investigation into a conspiracy to violate a festival ordinance. Authorities made the arrest at a house where there was a paid party with tickets sold on a ticketing platform.
The sheriff’s office did note that no one died this year. There were no fentanyl overdoses and no cliffside falls.
In 2023, a junior at UC Santa Barbara died of a fentanyl overdose at the festival and more than a decade ago a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student fell off a cliff and died.
