Horry County Council wants to ‘scale-down’ the big motorcycle rallies. At Tuesday’s meeting, council members voted 8-4 in favor of ordinances that put restrictions on rally vendors and anyone who wants to have an outdoor event in Horry County.
Councilman Bob Grabowski, who is an avid biker, said the ordinance that would reduce the number of rally vendors, raise vendor prices, limits the number of days, and only makes certain locations available to vendors is not fair to the biker community. Grabowski said they should be given a chance during this year's spring rally to police themselves.
"This ordinance does not give them a chance to do that and it hurts a lot of the smaller vendor’s locations or smaller destination locations." Grabowski said.
The councilman added that if approved, the new ordinances might affect revenue.
"In past bike events, it's been revenue neutral, we've not really made money on it, but we've not lost any money on it. Bottom line, it didn't cost the taxpaying, property owning citizens of Horry County a dime for these bike weeks and for the benefit, the economic benefit that it brought to the area, that might not be true this time." Grabowski said.
Councilman Brent Schulz said this is not a money issue, rather an issue over noise and what his constituents are saying about bringing an end to the rallies to all together.
"This whole issue has in my eyes, doesn't have a whole lot to do with money, it has to do with the quality of life of people living here at the beach." Schulz said.
Schulz said getting rid of the rallies as a whole would be difficult but, if passed, the ordinances would bring order to the rallies. If they don't pass, Schulz said he will continue to rally for the changes the people he represents, want.
"We're going to have to take another step and that would be to look at the existing zoning that's on the book and start enforcing a lot of laws that have already been there." Schulz said.
Council members also approved the first reading of an ordinance that would require a permit for all outdoor events.
Both ordinances require a third and final reading before they are passed.
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