ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – Though park visitation numbers are down so far this season, arrests are way up.

Rangers have arrested 10 people so far on a variety of charges and logged close to 40 drug and alcohol cases, an increase over the usual yearly average of two to six arrests, rangers said. The park’s statistics for this June showed an 11 percent drop in visitors over the same time last year.

More aggressive policing explains part of the jump in crime numbers, law enforcement rangers said Tuesday. But the numbers also can be linked to an upsurge in the perennial summer pastime of partying in the park.

“We want people to come and enjoy the park, but we don’t want it to be treated like a frat party,” said Mike Wilson, front-country law enforcement supervisor. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Toward that end, Wilson said that his staff has launched a crackdown on folks who receive citations for illegal activity in the park. They are starting to arrest people who haven’t paid their tickets, the ranger said. One Bar Harbor man, John Tinker, 18, spent the night in Hancock County Jail for nonpayment of fines.

“There was a long history in the past about the park not being real good about follow-up on tickets,” Wilson said. “Without some type of consistency, I think that if you don’t pay your fines, that [seems] OK at Acadia. We’re going to send the word back that it’s not.”

Drinking alcohol is prohibited on Echo Lake Beach, Sand Beach, Lake Wood and Ranger Camp at Long Pond. Loitering in parking lots with alcohol or having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle are also illegal activities in the park.

Visitors still may consume alcohol in other locations.

“You can sit out on the rocks and drink your wine and have a picnic,” Wilson said. “That’s fine.”

Safety is a chief concern of park law enforcement crews, he said, especially when folks – including teenagers – are caught drinking near bodies of water. At Ranger Camp, an illicit rope swing has kept coming back despite the rangers’ attempts to take it down, and that fuels the worries.

“We’ve heard rumors of injury,” Wilson said. “I think a lot of the minor injuries don’t get reported. You can imagine, the combination of the big ledges on Long Pond and the rope and the abuse of drugs and alcohol worries us a lot.”

When visitors are charged with violations such as marijuana use or illicit drinking, their fines range from about $50 to $500. Even with the park’s new hardball policy on those who don’t pay their fines, officials still make “extraordinary efforts” to get people to pay, Wilson said.

“We issued one guy three different summonses and he wouldn’t come to court, so a warrant was issued,” the ranger said. “The message I would send is that you have to pay your park ticket one way or another.”