A late-night ride-along on Monterey State Beach starts with fire and ends with smoke.

It’s 10pm Friday night and Scott Collier, an officer with the Monterey Police Department, leads the way into a small garage by City Hall. We head toward a rack of helmets, all black and nearly spherical, like the headwear in Mel Brooks’ 1987 Spaceballs. A medium is too small, so I settle on large. Tonight, my head will look like a bowling ball.

The helmets are required to ride in the MPD’s utility terrain vehicle, a Polaris 800 EFI Crew. The department acquired it in 2013 for $27,256, fully equipped, to patrol the beach.

The Polaris (or in MPD parlance, the UTV) resembles a black, armored, five-seater golf cart. Collier climbs in the driver’s side, field training officer Jake Pinkas sits shotgun and I take the middle of the three back seats, so the weight on the tires is evenly distributed.

Collier ignites the motor and pulls out onto Pacific Street – the UTV is street legal. We head through Monterey toward the city’s commercial wharf, and hit the sand just to its north.

“We’re going to talk to people, educate them about what the laws are and try to keep everyone happy,” Pinkas says.

Alcohol and fires are illegal on Monterey beaches after 10pm. Before 10, fires are only legal in fire rings. Glass is illegal all the time. MPD spokesman Lt. Jeff Jackson says the laws were put in place largely for the benefit of nearby residents, many of whom don’t take kindly to smoke and late-night partying. “We do have pressure from neighborhoods to write [tickets],” he says.

As we pull onto Del Monte Beach at 10:19pm, the beach is still aglow with fires. Collier stops next to one of them.

Pinkas steps out of the UTV, shining his flashlight toward the fire, which is surrounded by eight college-age folks.

“I am the bearer of bad news,” Pinkas says, before telling them they must put out their fire. “Alright, that sucks,” says a goateed man in the group.

Pinkas stands there just long enough to watch the partiers bury the coals in sand. When he’s sure the fire is out, he hops back in the UTV.

Collier and Pinkas make sure a half dozen groups extinguish their fires near Wharf 2, then we head north. Collier leans on the gas, pushing the UTV to about 22 miles per hour over the uneven sand, making for a bumpy ride. The heat of the engine, which is situated under the back seat, starts to burn my calf.

Our next stop finds a group of a dozen or so revelers south of Casa Verde Beach. As Pinkas steps flashlight-first out of the UTV, he is illuminated by the fire, and his handsome face and fit physique seem like a welcome surprise to some in the group.

“Are you single?” one woman asks. Pinkas, with a grin, says he is married and tells them to put out their fire.

By the time we get to the city’s northern boundary, just past the recently renamed beachfront hotel Unscripted Monterey Bay, we’ve come upon about a dozen fires. Pinkas says that’s about average. With their coals now buried in sand, the beach is blanketed with smoke.

The officers eye a fire just north of the hotel, and Collier turns to Pinkas. “Seaside?” he says, and Pinkas nods. Leaving the Seaside fires for Seaside PD to deal with, Collier steers the UTV south, back toward the Monterey police station, then stops.

After idling for a few minutes to make sure the fires are suitably extinguished, Pinkas turns to Collier. “Alright man, you ready?”

Collier nods, flips on the sirens, and starts tearing down the beach at 25 mph. Nearly all the partiers have dispersed.

As we make our way back onto the road, just before the officers’ lunch break (they’re on a 4:30pm-2:30am shift), I ask if there’s anywhere they’d rather be. After a moment, Collier, who’s been on the Monterey force for two and half months, turns back to me with a grin. “We’re on the beach, in a UTV!”

Back at the station, I feel surprised by how friendly and apologetic these officers had acted toward the merrymakers on the beach. I wasn’t expecting to see Bad Lieutenant, but I at least thought they’d write some tickets. (As I ask around later, some friends tell me Monterey police once cited them for after-hours beach fires with no warning.)

Pinkas says they rarely write tickets for illegal fires. “For the most part, people don’t know [about the law],” he says.

So I ask Jackson: How many illegal campfire tickets have been issued in the last two years? He tells me there were only two in 2014, and four so far this year. “Writing tickets,” he says, “doesn’t foster the best community relationships.”

I’ve enjoyed plenty of fires myself on Casa Verde beach, some that have burned past 10pm. Even knowing the law as I do now, I still might accidentally break it: When you’re hanging out with friends, time has a tendency to fly. If that happens, and I’m approached by Monterey officers, I hope they’re as friendly as Collier and Pinkas.