Myrtle Beach considers ending bike rallies
Published: May 28, 2008
Updated: May 29, 2008
The Myrtle Beach City Council admits its still preliminary, but they will discuss ending the bike rallies.
City spokesman Mark Kruea says the city gave money through the Chamber of Commerce to the Rev. Tim McCray to try to bring organization to this year’s Atlantic Beach Bike Fest.
Still, a Coastal Carolina student was shot and killed.
McCray and other ministers went before council Tuesday to informally ask for money for future Bike Fests and the council refused.
Kruea says people have been trying to generate other events for 15 years, but they have not been successful. He says the real draw for Atlantic Beach Bike Fest is cruising Ocean Boulevard.
Kruea says the council and many residents are fed up with the noise and problems the rallies bring. He says the city spends more money than it takes in from the rallies.
And, the council is confident they can replace the bikers with other visitors. Kruea says, again, this is a preliminary discussion. He admits the council has a lot more work to do before it makes any decision.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
My family has come to the beach for the last three years during Harley Week. We thoroughly enjoy being there during this time. We go to Ocean Boulevard to watch the bikes drive by and have never had a problem with anyone. My daughter and one of her friends went to dinner at a local restaurant and ended up sitting with several of them and had a blast. In 2007, we were there for the end of Harley Week and the beginning of Atlantic Bike Weekend. The tone around the beach completely changed. We had bikes running between cars on 17 when they didn’t feel that things were moving fast enough. It made me really nervous because these sports bikes are extremely fast and the drivers don’t always care about the drivers of the cars around them. The guys on the Harleys are not perfect but we have never had an issue when we were in traffic with them. I actually felt that they respected me and didn’t seem to want to push me out of the way. There are bad people in every group, but I feel that discontinuing both BikeFests would be a mistake. Maybe you need to have a town hall meeting regarding this to find out how the entire community feels instead of making a decision based on what a few have to say.
You cannot end one week without ending the other, for obvious reasons. Some businesses do make a lot of money those weeks, but several suffer from lack of family business. In my business, a transportation company, this past weekend there was just short of a riot. It took 40 minutes for police to get there because the roads were so congested. Residents can’t even go to the store, muchless anything else. Imagine a small family of four coming to town for the first time during Memorial Weekend, they would be horrified and the nudity, trash, and foul language. The citizens need to stand up and demand to stop this, or we need to vote on people who will stop it. I believe if we started a petition, we would have 70-80 percent who would sign to stop them. Thank you
I am a local business owner.. the 10 days of Harley Week provide enough sales that beats the entire month of March and April.. that is 10 days. not a month. I agree that every group has bad apples.. but don’t punish businesses who try to survive off our visitors. All you people do is complain, never have I heard about any concern for businesses.. just residents.. who might I point out, are too residents.
In response to Myrtle Beach ending the bike rallies, I don’t think that will solve vendor issues. If both rallies are ended, then tourism will surely go down.Putting family oriented events in its place will be fine if the money goes where it’s truly designated to go.Will this guarantee business for local vendors if the rallies are cut out, and family events put in? No. Your tourist rate will go down.Then your bikers will go to other states, and possibly add to their sales depending on what they have to offer. When there are restrictions on this, traveling down one lane, causing traffic jams, as Myrtle Beach has in the past, then it won’t take much for people to start going other places. You have to figure the cost of creating the family events, and how much you think it will bring in. Businesses have benefited from the bikers.Hotels, gas stations, beachwear outlets,grocery stores,restaurants,etc.They’re not complaining are they? Please don’t make this about certain vendors, as it seems to be what I gather from this. Maybe the vendors who didn’t get as much business this year need to get creative for next year!Hint:Set up a booth on the strip with your products,order items that the bikers or tourists during the rallies will be interested in, even though it’s not part of your regular inventory, you’d be in the mix. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.“ It’s insulting when you target certain demographics because things haven’t gone your way, or a few of your buddies way in business. Everything in Myrtle Beach shouldn’t just be based on the golfing industry or things of the sort. Maybe more money would be spent if the Chamber and its members thought in those terms.There are plenty of places people can tour, and they will if they feel lead. Stop targeting Atlantic Beach for everything. I feel that’s what Myrtle Beach officials want to see, is them fail. If you can’t help them, don’t hurt them.
I think that it will be a very good thing to end both Rallies. They benefit absolutely nothing. If a family oriented event were set up in it’s place to raise money for a good cause, that would satisfy everyone. I hope their COC puts good thought into this and plans to correlate something for a good cause.
Advertisement