Help sought with W3C Validation issue

Question

In order to place text from a database accurately in a cell I have used:
<span class="cont_layer">
<?php echo $row_restSelect['cel_blb'];  // Insert Details from dbase ?>
</span>
However, I am using tinyMCE at the input interface for the MYSQL database and tinyMCE puts in tags like <p> all over the place, so the output looks something like this:
<span class="cont_layer"><p>Some text.<br /> Some more text. <br /> <br /> And a bit more text.</p></span>
This works fine in practice, but I notice that W3C Validation rejects the structure with:
"document type does not allow element "p" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag"
I am using XHTML Transitional.
Is there a way around this, or should I just stop being so anal about validation?

Answer 1

A <span> is for inline elements and cannot contain block-level elements, such as paragraphs. Replace your <span> with a <div> and all will be hunky-dory.
<div class="cont_layer">
<?php echo $row_restSelect['cel_blb'];  // Insert Details from dbase ?>
</div>