Crowbar
06-23-2008, 11:27 PM
I have a friend that lives in MB and she says this is the talk of the town right now, discuss
taken from http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/494946.html
MB explores rally-ending ideas
By Lorena Anderson - landerson@thesunnews.com (landerson@thesunnews.com)
Myrtle Beach leaders are taking steps toward redefining the month of May -- an effort Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mayor Jim Naugle understands well.
Naugle was a City Council member when spring break peaked in Fort Lauderdale in the mid-1980s, drawing 400,000 college students a year -- part of the 3 million tourists who annually visited that city. ``It's a big chunk of business that lasts a short time,'' Naugle said. ``But the reputation lasts for years.''
The city was happy with spring break crowds until the party got out of hand: public drunkenness; lewd acts; complaints from residents; increased traffic, trash and crime; and even some deaths. Fort Lauderdale officials decided it had to stop.
They passed an open-container law in 1988, redeveloped the downtown and oceanfront areas and marketed the city to potential visitors from all over the world.
Now, Naugle said, the city draws 11 million tourists a year and about 25,000 college students.
"Oh, we got criticism. Bar owners swore their businesses were going to close. We got criticism from the beer companies. We still get some. It was risky,'' Naugle said. ``But all people have to do is look at the numbers to see we're better off.''
Myrtle Beach is going to look to cities such as Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach for ideas on how to replace motorcycle-event visitors with other groups.
Unique challenges
Naugle said the open-container ban was the death of spring break in Fort Lauderdale. It's not that simple here. There's already an open-container law in Myrtle Beach. To reduce the by-products of bike rallies, the city faces some challenges:
The rallies are not Myrtle Beach-specific. The Harley-Davidson spring rally takes place all over Horry County; and the Atlantic Beach Bikefest is sponsored by that town, which says it makes money off the event and doesn't want to end it. Grand Strand roads are public. So how can Myrtle Beach stop people from coming to the rallies?
Some businesses make a lot of money during the rallies. Some, like Ben Brown's B&M Custom Cycle Shop, say they owe the bulk of their existence to the rallies.
Myrtle Beach's economy is built on tourism, unlike Fort Lauderdale, which makes more money off the marine industry than it does from tourists, now its No. 2 cash cow. How can Myrtle Beach turn away tourists?
Some guest rules
"Because we are a tourist town, does that mean we forfeit the right to have some control over tourism? No," City Manager Tom Leath said. "We invite people to the party, but we should be able to have some control over how they behave, like if you had a party at your house."
Some say this is a move to get rid of the predominantly black Bikefest. Some say people are irrationally afraid of Harley riders.
Leath disagrees. He said all people are welcome, but only if they are willing to respect the town and abide by the law. And not in such large numbers all at once.
"If you have any group in the hundreds of thousands - be it doctors, beauticians or Shriners - descend on a town of 25,000 permanent residents, it's going to displace some people. It's going to cause some problems," he said. "The bikers always say it's not them who cause problems, but we do have problems with them. Yes, we do."
Mike Shank, a co-owner of Festival Promotions, one of the county's largest organizers of bike-related events, said the area needs to welcome visitors, not run them off.
"No matter how much your taxes are raised or how much money is spent, you can't keep people from visiting Horry County, walking and driving on public streets. They come to these events in such large numbers because they love the Grand Strand and what it has to offer," he said last week to Horry County Council.
Thrown off-kilter
Myrtle Beach is aware it cannot stop people from coming and that it needs support from not only residents but surrounding towns.
"What we all want is balance," City Manager Tom Leath said. "These two events are out of balance.
"Every business in town has the opportunity to make money on any given weekend - except during the bike rallies. Other groups do not come here because of the bikers."
Naugle said he heard from business owners and residents who complained about the loss of business and that his city had to endure some lean years - but its improved reputation has been a boon.
"I had one man say, 'Alcohol built this town,'" he said. "If that's what you are known for, is it worth it?"
Longer arm of the law?
Some people at the Myrtle Beach City Council meeting two weeks ago urged officials to make sure laws are strictly enforced during bike rallies.
Leath has said the city's entire 100-member police force is on duty - as are 200 to 300 extra officers from all over the state, including from colleges and universities - but there aren't enough officers to spare to enforce zero tolerance policies during the rallies.
Even if there were, he said, it takes a lot of support to deal with all the extra arrests: jails, courts, people to process tickets and fines.
One possibility is to have movable traffic checkpoints with noise chambers.
Officers could check licenses and registration, conduct DUI checks and could have portable sound-testing facilities to make sure motorcycles didn't violate acceptable decibel levels.
"Locals would have to deal with the bottlenecks for three weeks, which would be interesting, but we have to make it inconvenient for people," Councilman Randal Wallace said.
"Five miles of bikes backed up - that would take some fun out of the event," Leath said.
At a council meeting two weeks ago, some people suggested traffic tables - wider and broader than normal, flat-topped speed bumps - to slow people down, but Leath said temporary ones could cause more problems than they solve, especially among residents who aren't used to them.
Other people suggested curfews; but legally, those can only be in place for people younger than 18, Leath said.
Myrtle Beach city staffers in coming weeks will put together a list of options for City Council members to choose from, including policing ideas, traffic control and marketing plans. Leath said he wants that ready by the beginning of August, after a late-July public forum with the Grand Strand Alliance, a group of all regional governments. The date has not been set for that meeting yet.
Naugle invited Myrtle Beach leaders to Fort Lauderdale to see if they can find inspiration there.
A few bad eggs
Joanne Vogelsong, a member of the Myrtle Beach Friendship Team - about 60 people who walk Ocean Boulevard and other crowded areas to act as community liaisons and watchdogs during the rallies - said there are a lot of good people who come during bike week, but the ones who break the law "outshine" the others.
"I think it has gotten a little worse," said Vogelsong, who has been walking the boulevard during bike rallies for six years.
"They wouldn't like it if we came to their towns and did these things," she said.
Sneaky tax increase?
Vogelsong supports the steps the city has taken toward replacing bike-rally tourism with other groups. She said she doesn't think the City Council passed the tax increase too quickly.
"We didn't sneak it past anyone," said Councilwoman Susan Grissom Means. "We had hundreds and hundreds of people contact us saying they want the bikers gone."
Leath agreed.
"Anyone who says they didn't see this coming hasn't been paying much attention," he said. "This has been building for years. The council just finally decided that if there's going to be a problem, it's not going to be for lack of funding."
Resident Joanne Utterback said she doesn't think people will be much affected by the millage-rate increase. One mill equals an additional $4 in property taxes for every $100,000 of assessed value for all owner-occupied homes, and $6 for every $100,000 assessed value of commercial property and second homes.
Means said she has, over the years, heard from many people on both sides of the issue.
But the ones who favor the rallies, she said, usually don't live in Myrtle Beach.
"They don't pay taxes here. They don't bear the brunt of the rallies," she said. "I have to listen to my constituents - the people who elected me. if there's a supermajority that favors the rallies, we haven't heard them."Contact LORENA ANDERSON at 444-1722.
Mike Shank | co-owner, festival promotions
taken from http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/494946.html
MB explores rally-ending ideas
By Lorena Anderson - landerson@thesunnews.com (landerson@thesunnews.com)
Myrtle Beach leaders are taking steps toward redefining the month of May -- an effort Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mayor Jim Naugle understands well.
Naugle was a City Council member when spring break peaked in Fort Lauderdale in the mid-1980s, drawing 400,000 college students a year -- part of the 3 million tourists who annually visited that city. ``It's a big chunk of business that lasts a short time,'' Naugle said. ``But the reputation lasts for years.''
The city was happy with spring break crowds until the party got out of hand: public drunkenness; lewd acts; complaints from residents; increased traffic, trash and crime; and even some deaths. Fort Lauderdale officials decided it had to stop.
They passed an open-container law in 1988, redeveloped the downtown and oceanfront areas and marketed the city to potential visitors from all over the world.
Now, Naugle said, the city draws 11 million tourists a year and about 25,000 college students.
"Oh, we got criticism. Bar owners swore their businesses were going to close. We got criticism from the beer companies. We still get some. It was risky,'' Naugle said. ``But all people have to do is look at the numbers to see we're better off.''
Myrtle Beach is going to look to cities such as Fort Lauderdale and Daytona Beach for ideas on how to replace motorcycle-event visitors with other groups.
Unique challenges
Naugle said the open-container ban was the death of spring break in Fort Lauderdale. It's not that simple here. There's already an open-container law in Myrtle Beach. To reduce the by-products of bike rallies, the city faces some challenges:
The rallies are not Myrtle Beach-specific. The Harley-Davidson spring rally takes place all over Horry County; and the Atlantic Beach Bikefest is sponsored by that town, which says it makes money off the event and doesn't want to end it. Grand Strand roads are public. So how can Myrtle Beach stop people from coming to the rallies?
Some businesses make a lot of money during the rallies. Some, like Ben Brown's B&M Custom Cycle Shop, say they owe the bulk of their existence to the rallies.
Myrtle Beach's economy is built on tourism, unlike Fort Lauderdale, which makes more money off the marine industry than it does from tourists, now its No. 2 cash cow. How can Myrtle Beach turn away tourists?
Some guest rules
"Because we are a tourist town, does that mean we forfeit the right to have some control over tourism? No," City Manager Tom Leath said. "We invite people to the party, but we should be able to have some control over how they behave, like if you had a party at your house."
Some say this is a move to get rid of the predominantly black Bikefest. Some say people are irrationally afraid of Harley riders.
Leath disagrees. He said all people are welcome, but only if they are willing to respect the town and abide by the law. And not in such large numbers all at once.
"If you have any group in the hundreds of thousands - be it doctors, beauticians or Shriners - descend on a town of 25,000 permanent residents, it's going to displace some people. It's going to cause some problems," he said. "The bikers always say it's not them who cause problems, but we do have problems with them. Yes, we do."
Mike Shank, a co-owner of Festival Promotions, one of the county's largest organizers of bike-related events, said the area needs to welcome visitors, not run them off.
"No matter how much your taxes are raised or how much money is spent, you can't keep people from visiting Horry County, walking and driving on public streets. They come to these events in such large numbers because they love the Grand Strand and what it has to offer," he said last week to Horry County Council.
Thrown off-kilter
Myrtle Beach is aware it cannot stop people from coming and that it needs support from not only residents but surrounding towns.
"What we all want is balance," City Manager Tom Leath said. "These two events are out of balance.
"Every business in town has the opportunity to make money on any given weekend - except during the bike rallies. Other groups do not come here because of the bikers."
Naugle said he heard from business owners and residents who complained about the loss of business and that his city had to endure some lean years - but its improved reputation has been a boon.
"I had one man say, 'Alcohol built this town,'" he said. "If that's what you are known for, is it worth it?"
Longer arm of the law?
Some people at the Myrtle Beach City Council meeting two weeks ago urged officials to make sure laws are strictly enforced during bike rallies.
Leath has said the city's entire 100-member police force is on duty - as are 200 to 300 extra officers from all over the state, including from colleges and universities - but there aren't enough officers to spare to enforce zero tolerance policies during the rallies.
Even if there were, he said, it takes a lot of support to deal with all the extra arrests: jails, courts, people to process tickets and fines.
One possibility is to have movable traffic checkpoints with noise chambers.
Officers could check licenses and registration, conduct DUI checks and could have portable sound-testing facilities to make sure motorcycles didn't violate acceptable decibel levels.
"Locals would have to deal with the bottlenecks for three weeks, which would be interesting, but we have to make it inconvenient for people," Councilman Randal Wallace said.
"Five miles of bikes backed up - that would take some fun out of the event," Leath said.
At a council meeting two weeks ago, some people suggested traffic tables - wider and broader than normal, flat-topped speed bumps - to slow people down, but Leath said temporary ones could cause more problems than they solve, especially among residents who aren't used to them.
Other people suggested curfews; but legally, those can only be in place for people younger than 18, Leath said.
Myrtle Beach city staffers in coming weeks will put together a list of options for City Council members to choose from, including policing ideas, traffic control and marketing plans. Leath said he wants that ready by the beginning of August, after a late-July public forum with the Grand Strand Alliance, a group of all regional governments. The date has not been set for that meeting yet.
Naugle invited Myrtle Beach leaders to Fort Lauderdale to see if they can find inspiration there.
A few bad eggs
Joanne Vogelsong, a member of the Myrtle Beach Friendship Team - about 60 people who walk Ocean Boulevard and other crowded areas to act as community liaisons and watchdogs during the rallies - said there are a lot of good people who come during bike week, but the ones who break the law "outshine" the others.
"I think it has gotten a little worse," said Vogelsong, who has been walking the boulevard during bike rallies for six years.
"They wouldn't like it if we came to their towns and did these things," she said.
Sneaky tax increase?
Vogelsong supports the steps the city has taken toward replacing bike-rally tourism with other groups. She said she doesn't think the City Council passed the tax increase too quickly.
"We didn't sneak it past anyone," said Councilwoman Susan Grissom Means. "We had hundreds and hundreds of people contact us saying they want the bikers gone."
Leath agreed.
"Anyone who says they didn't see this coming hasn't been paying much attention," he said. "This has been building for years. The council just finally decided that if there's going to be a problem, it's not going to be for lack of funding."
Resident Joanne Utterback said she doesn't think people will be much affected by the millage-rate increase. One mill equals an additional $4 in property taxes for every $100,000 of assessed value for all owner-occupied homes, and $6 for every $100,000 assessed value of commercial property and second homes.
Means said she has, over the years, heard from many people on both sides of the issue.
But the ones who favor the rallies, she said, usually don't live in Myrtle Beach.
"They don't pay taxes here. They don't bear the brunt of the rallies," she said. "I have to listen to my constituents - the people who elected me. if there's a supermajority that favors the rallies, we haven't heard them."Contact LORENA ANDERSON at 444-1722.
Mike Shank | co-owner, festival promotions