Business owners, bikers: Ocean Boulevard a 'ghost town'

The Ocean Boulevard traffic pattern for the Harley-Davidson spring motorcycle rally is now in effect. From two in the afternoon until midnight Thursday through Sunday, traffic can only head southbound on Ocean Blvd. from 29th Avenue North to 17th Avenue South. The northbound lanes are reserved for emergency traffic only.

Kay Turner, manager of The Beach Walk Motel on 17th Avenue South and Ocean Boulevard said "This is what is supposed to be normally, previously known as Harley-Davidson bike week, it's not happening this year though. The city (Myrtle Beach) has more or less put a stopping on it, we're thankful that we do have one room rented to a biker also though, as far as the rest of the week, we'll have to wait and see what happens.”

Turner said she sees the normal preparations for bike week happening, but bikers are passing her by. And the one room she rented to a biker isn’t bringing in a lot of money. "He's only here for one night, so far he's taken it one night at a time to find out whether he gets hassled by the city.”

Turner said she doesn’t know how many Ocean Boulevard hotels will recover the profits from what is normally one of the busiest weeks of the season. “As far as turning it around, I don't even know if the bikers would want to come back, it be like if you told me to go away, I wouldn't want to come back either, so I don't know if they would come back." Turner said.

Tim Courtney, from Richmond, Virginia said he’s been coming to Myrtle Beach for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally for more than a decade. This year he said Ocean Boulevard looks like a ghost town.

"Compared to what we usually see, there's hardly anybody here, I been down to Murrells Inlet and that's where a lot of people are, we just came from close to Barefoot Landing and they're also up there, that's where all the vendors are.” Courtney said he doesn’t know if he’ll be back next year. “It depends on what happens between now and next year, situation down here." Courtney said.

Sean Paschall from Union County is in Myrtle Beach during the Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally for the first time. Paschall said, “The only thing that I know that's crazy is the helmet rule down here now, I think that's outrageous, a lot of people wait to turn twenty-one so they don't have to wear a helmet, now I’m twenty-two and I have to wear one anyway.”

Myrtle Beach councilman Randal Wallace, the only council member who voted against the helmet law the council passed along with a series of others designed to curtail the rallies said he’s been hearing a mixed bag of reactions from people in the city. Wallace said some people are happier that it's not as loud as it had been, but the lack of bikers has been an economic hit for hoteliers.

Wallace said council is trying to compensate for the lack of revenue. "We passed, seven, zero, the one percent, one cent sales tax and this is, in my mind, is what we were trying to address, you know to make sure, this is a transition year from whatever bike week used to be to whatever it may be, because I’m not convinced that we're going to be, that it'll be gone or anything."

Wallace said council plans to spend the money generated from the tax on marketing the area so more tourists will come and there’s not another May with empty hotel rooms. Wallace said he still has mixed emotions about the helmet law, although he said he has seen people wearing them and the police enforcing the law. Wallace said while it looks like council did succeed in reigning in some of the unwanted behavior and noise, he’s not sure how much the change in this year’s rally is due to council’s decisions, he said the economy also played a part.

But Wallace adds the boycott of the city many bikers said they would do appears to be working because it looks like the message sent was that no one was welcome here. Wallace said one of his concerns with the helmet law is that it applies to people who were not breaking any other law. "I wish we' would have stuck to, we're going to get this under control, we're going to address the issues that were out there instead of saying to people they weren't welcome, I’ve heard a lot of that and that's kind of unusual for a tourism town."

Turner said she hopes the crowds will pick up this weekend. But she also said she has already had one person cancel for Memorial Day Weekend, another weekend Turner was hoping would be a profitable for the Ocean Blvd. motel she manages.

Wallace said it’s too early to tell what kind of impact the new laws will have on the Memorial Weekend bike fest.