Florida Police 'Ticket' Drivers With Pizza, Gifts Certificates

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. --

The champagne bottles are empty and the Christmas trees have all come down, but if you're driving around Key Biscayne, you may notice a bit of leftover holiday cheer in the air.

"I wanted to reward you for safe driving, for not taking the red light back there," said a patrol officer to a Key Biscayne resident she pulled over.

For the rest of the month, officers will be pulling over good drivers and handing out gifts instead of tickets -- things like gift certificates and free pizza. Officers said it is a fun way to encourage good behavior and an indirect way of preventing post-holiday neighborhood crime.

"We all know that crime typically goes up this time of year, so we're letting everybody know out there that the cops are out. We're out there in force," said Key Biscayne's police chief.

Patrol officers are saturating the streets, going in and out of neighborhoods, talking to residents and looking for anything out of place.

"We're looking mostly in the residential areas for people breaking into vehicles. They take anything visible, like GPSs and iPods," said one officer.

The idea is to reward the do-gooders while sending a very visible message to the bad guys to keep out.

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