After wrestling with the May motorcycle rallies - Harley-Davidson and sportbike alike - the city of Myrtle Beach this fall passed 15 new laws and amendments aimed at curbing the rallies' effects on permanent residents. Residents complain every year that the rallies - the Harley-Davidson Spring Cruisin' the Coast event and Atlantic Beach Bikefest - generate too much noise, traffic, reckless driving and illegal/illicit behavior.
The situation reached a head this year after a Coastal Carolina University student was shot to death over a parking space during Bikefest. Although the shooting did not involve bikers, community and council members made "enough is enough" the new rallying cry and the city took decisive action, including a juvenile curfew, limiting alcohol sales and noise, and passing a helmet law for riders within city limits. Their actions generated a firestorm of controversy and three lawsuits.
Where things stand
Many of the ordinances do not take effect until Feb. 28, including the helmet law, and though the three lawsuits filed so far have requested injunctions to prevent the city from enforcing some of the ordinances, in two cases - one in Horry County Circuit Court and one in U.S. District Court - those requests have been denied. The third suit, in U.S. District Court, has not been heard yet. The suits allege the city has overstepped its bounds by making a helmet law more restrictive than the state's, that the rules are unconstitutional, restrict interstate commerce, chill free speech and more. The city, meanwhile, is moving forward with plans to create an administrative hearing court to handle tickets given out under the new ordinances, which will carry civil penalties, not criminal ones.
Event promoter Mike Shank, who works for Harley-Davidson of Myrtle Beach, said he has not yet begun advertising for the 2009 Harley rally, but has heard from plenty of people who say they will not return to Myrtle Beach or that they will come and defy the new laws.
The city, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and others are working on ways to market Myrtle Beach to a diverse group of tourists to replace the commerce likely to be lost as people choose not to patronize Myrtle Beach and its businesses to protest the crackdown on the rallies, which bring about half a million people to the area every year.