Are they kidding? Apparently not.It's right at the top of the official "Myrtle Beach bike week" web page! (STAY OUT, you scuzzy characters!)
Okay, did somebody get killed or what?
Myrtle Beach has long hosted (since 1940) the third-largest biker rally in the USA, a 10-day event in early May, as well as another "full rally" in late September. These routinely attract hundreds of thousands of tourists. Various websites are still advertising the 2009 Bike Week dates. No doubt, some folks will just show up out of mere habit.
In trying to research this story, I have a hard time finding any information...although I did find out it's 115 days until Spring Rally! Were the bikers themselves told that MB has put the kibosh on their vacations? I can only imagine how that will go over, as many working-class people have to request their vacation-time as far in advance as a year (I once had to, at a former job) and probably can't change them now. That really sucks.
Articles from the Myrtle Beach Sun are hard to locate online, as are most newspapers these days. (*Thank God for bloggers! Keep up the good work, mainstream media!*) I did find one blog that seemed to know something; Cyril Huze posted this last June:
Via Myrtle Beach Sun News, below the highlights of the measures taken by the city to end motorcycle-related vending inside the city:And one of the Cyril's readers, Jeff Nicklus, enthusiastically comments:
“Myrtle Beach City Council hit the gas on eradicating motorcycle rallies by passing a three-mill property-tax increase dedicated to an anti-bike-rally campaign 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. City leaders say they want to actively market May as a family vacation month, replacing bike rally participants. 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.”
Myrtle Beach has long attempted to turn itself into squeaky-clean Branson, Missouri, and this seems the final step in that boring, middle-class direction. They can finally drive out the riff-raff, after 68 years of fattening themselves up on their money.
TO THE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS OF MYRTLE BEACH:
What a bunch of crap. The City of Myrtle Beach wants us gone. Well guess what you idiots I have been thrown out of better places! You don’t want us there, OK, I will take my company(s) and we will stay home. That’s right your self serving, pompous, Ben Gay wearing, Stay off my Grass old fart citizens of Myrtle Beach can kiss my butt because Desperado Motorcycles and Jeff Nicklus Customs will not be seen in Myrtle Beach again! Oh yes, need I forget, neither will the $30-35,000.00 we spend annually to bring our dog and pony show to Myrtle Beach. I wonder how many families spend that much on vacations and Putt-Putt Golf in the Myrtle Beach during any 7-10 day period ? NONE YOU IDIOTS! NONE! Take the bikers out of the mix and guess what …… you are going to need to increase the property tax more than three mills per hundred to make up for this mistake.
In this increasingly-bedeviled economy, another insane, fucked-up move from South Carolina! (Remember, they didn't want the gay money, either.)
If anyone has any more info, please comment. There is more secrecy in Horry County than there is in Washington these days!