MB looks to give bike rallies the boot
City passes tax increase to fund efforts
Motorcycles cruise down Kings Highway during the Myrtle Beach bike rally last month.
Myrtle Beach City Council hit the gas on eradicating motorcycle rallies Tuesday by passing a three-mill property-tax increase dedicated to an anti-bike-rally campaign and beginning to enact ordinances that will end motorcycle-related vending inside the city.
All seven council members at Tuesday's meeting voted in favor of the tax increase, which will raise about $1 million a year. 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.
City staff members are tasked with coming up with a list of strategies for ending the rallies, and city leaders will choose which ones they want to try and which ones the city can afford.
It's news that will please the hundreds of anti-rally residents who showed up at last week's council meeting; but for others, it's not glad tidings.
"What I do in May and October is 40 percent of my business," said Ben Brown, owner of B&M Custom Cycles in downtown Myrtle Beach. "Without bike rallies, I don't have a business. What about all these other businesses - the drug stores, the movie theaters, the restaurants - that make money from the rallies? The money filters through the local economy."
City leaders say they want to actively market May as a family vacation month, replacing bike rally attendees.
But Brown said many of the people who come for the Harley-Davidson-related rallies in May and October also come down for family vacations at other times of the year, and they will not come back if they are not welcome in the spring and fall.
"When times get tough, you cannot go back and say 'we welcome your business,'" said Mike Shank, a partner in Festival Promotions, one of the Grand Strand's largest promoters of bike rally events.
The millage increase is a part of final passage of the 2008-09 budget that equals, with the capital improvement plan that pays for the boardwalk and other downtown improvements, about $151 million.
At Tuesday's meeting, council members also voted to change the city's OZ-50 zoning so vending permits cannot be issued in May. OZ-50 covers the Myrtle Beach Convention Center and Broadway at the Beach, two spots that in years past have drawn motorcycle-related vending.
That proposed ordinance must go before the city's Planning Commission for review before it gets its second and final reading.
Council members voted to cancel all motorcycle-related facilities permits for the month of May, as well. That ordinance also needs a second reading before it is considered official.
And they passed a resolution to send Mayor John Rhodes to Horry County Council to ask for the county's help in ending the bike rallies.
Rhodes takes part in the Coastal Alliance, a group of Grand Strand governments that meets monthly to work together on regional issues, and he said that group supported the city's efforts.
Council members who had previously been hesitant to enact a millage increase to dedicate a mill's worth of money to fund public transportation through The Coast Regional Transit Authority and additional police and recreation staff said residents clearly want an anti-rally campaign.
At last week's meeting, people said they were willing to pay for it.
But as part of the budget's passage, council members also agreed to fund two additional workers to assist at the city's three recreation centers, at a cost of $86,000. That money will come from the general fund.
The new budget is balanced with $252,000 going to The Coast RTA - not as much as some council members wanted, because a mill is worth about $335,000 a year. But Councilwoman Susan Grissom Means said she would push for that increase next year.
She said the anti-rally campaign takes precedence this year.
Shank said he thinks it's interesting that the city wouldn't pass an increase to fund transit or services "that actually benefit the residents, but they will pass an increase that they don't even know how they're going to spend yet."Contact LORENA ANDERSON at 444-1722.
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Tags: Myrtle Beach Bike Week
Photos: Camp Cool-Out
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