Controversy about Myrtle Beach Rallies

[wcarter]

Despite the tourism money, there is a move afoot in Myrtle Beach to shut down all bike rallies. So much so that the City is proposing a tax increase just to fund studies of options to discourage future rallies.

Here is a link to an article in the local paper: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/561374.html The comments to the article are as interesting as the news item.


I attended a work-sponsored event at a high-end Myrtle Beach resort complex a couple of years ago. Not knowing any better, I rode my LT and was told that the resort has a total ban on all motorcycles. At least they let me park my bike at the maintenance shed but my first thought was that certain groups (you pick the group) had ruined the public image of all motorcyclists.

There are many layers to this story but it's a shame that it has come to this.

[RonKMiller]

That ban at the resort is curious - I guess CCR won't be held there anytime in the near future.

A VERY high end neighborhood and resort http://www.cordillera-vail.com near my second home in Colorado has an very active motorcycle/travel club (complete with matching leather jackets) consisting mainly - but by no means exclusively - of Harleys. http://www.cma-club.com

The only way you can join is by having one of the members recommend you and pay a $500.00 yearly fee. They do tons of good in the community and have a major "bikers ball" where they raise some serious cash for local charities each year.

They are more or less a bunch of rich old guys that have nothing better to do with their time - but it is interesting to note that they are welcomed in the community and even take part in the local Fourth of July parade each year - revving their engines to the delight and horror of young children. These guys are pretty much the polar opposite of the Hells Angels.

I'm not interested in joining - I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member. ;)

...and in Aspen, motorcycles are welcome to park just about anywhere they want (where parking is extremely hard to find and expensive) for FREE. The cops don't even give 'em a second look when they park on street corners or other areas that cars can't quite fit in. As long as you don't block traffic or pedestrian access you are good to go.

That part of the article that refers to "Two other options that did not come up for discussion at Tuesday's workshop are traffic checkpoints at which officers would monitor noise and check for license, registration, drug or alcohol violations, and warrants; and traffic diversion efforts such as barriers, chutes and closed streets." is really disturbing. Welcome to East Berlin circa 1970. :(

[blankshot]

When I was looking to buy Condo there were to many around this area that will not allow motorcycles on the property. I found one that had Motorcycle parking and bought that one.

Loud pipes (all makes and models) in this area is affecting the way the public see bikes and it's not in a positive light.

[lnowell]

Sadly it is not just the loud pipes. There are some retailers there that found it cheaper to pay their employees and close for one of the weeks than it was to say open and suffer the cost of a weeks worth of pilferage and larceny.

A SLED (SC Law enforcement Division) agent friend had to pull duty there for bike weeks every year for the past three and hated it. He said one was not so bad but very loud. The other was just lawless chaos.

No matter how much money SOME of the businesses pull in from the bike week attendees - it looks like the locals have had enough and I for one can't blame them.

[jeffklt]

So much so that the City is proposing a tax increase just to fund studies of options to discourage future rallies.



Just a note of clarification from a resident of Myrtle Beach. They actually passed a three mil increase with no plan whatsoever. Now that they passed the tax, they are trying to create a plan to spend the money. Never a simple situation, but I guarantee the solution will be even more confusing and absurd.

[jeffklt]

That part of the article that refers to "Two other options that did not come up for discussion at Tuesday's workshop are traffic checkpoints at which officers would monitor noise and check for license, registration, drug or alcohol violations, and warrants; and traffic diversion efforts such as barriers, chutes and closed streets." is really disturbing. Welcome to East Berlin circa 1970. :(


Again clarification from a Myrtle Beach resident. Our "bike week" lasts for about three weeks. The first two weeks are the Harley riders and the final week is black biker week in which about 25% of the folks are on motorcycles and the rest come to party. It is not much like East Berlin in 1970 but rather more like Watts during the riots.

[ldbikin]

Three straight weeks of that shitz would be enough to make anyone crazy.

Still, I wonder what the reaction would be if nothing changed other than taking cages versus bikes.

I agree with this checkpoint shitz too, I don't know if there is anything that just pisses me off more than having my time wasted and my rights trampled. Thanks to a clueless (well, more than half-clueless) supreme court decision resulting from the repub...err, I mean, the religious moral police right.

Saudi ain't got much on us these days, if your familiar with the morality police or whatever they call those morons.

We do, however, dig our own graves at times. Those pipes still hurt my ears and I'm about half deaf as it is.

[cccpastorjack]

OK, I'll say what no one else will...'cause I've talked to several LONG TIME Myrtle Beach business owners personally...

During Black Bike Week the behavior is so obscene and there is SO much open drunkeness, nudity and pilfering, many of the businesses have simply closed during that week. When people began to scream, "Racism! Prejudice!" they (the business owners) simply said, "OK then, NO more bike rallies period...white or black."

I'm tellin' ya....this is the truth that no one can speak about. They can't find a way to shut just one down without being labeled racists. My feeling is, why not just POLICE the thing and lock-up whoever is acting ridiculous...white or black! But then, controlling drunken crowds is easier "said" than "done".

[ldbikin]

I've never been to Sturgis, I wonder if they have the same problems, re, drunk, nude...nude...drunk....mmmm....mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

man, I really have to get out more :histerica

really though, are those problems specific to black bike week or just more noticable? Its hard to tell sometimes but I don't attend very many events (been to americade once when I was working in the area) and a couple charity runs (with all the harley folks on my yamaha or beemer) so my experience is limited.

[StillJustJerry]

drunk, nude...nude...drunk....mmmm

http://www.bmwlt.com/gallery/files/1/5/0/9/6/worthlesswithoutpics_887405.gif

[cccpastorjack]

I've never been to Sturgis, I wonder if they have the same problems, re, drunk, nude...nude...drunk....mmmm....mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

man, I really have to get out more :histerica

really though, are those problems specific to black bike week or just more noticable? Its hard to tell sometimes but I don't attend very many events (been to americade once when I was working in the area) and a couple charity runs (with all the harley folks on my yamaha or beemer) so my experience is limited.


All I know is what the business owners told me...

[shadowofshoe]

OK, I'll say what no one else will...'cause I've talked to several LONG TIME Myrtle Beach business owners personally...

During Black Bike Week the behavior is so obscene and there is SO much open drunkeness, nudity and pilfering, many of the businesses have simply closed during that week. When people began to scream, "Racism! Prejudice!" they (the business owners) simply said, "OK then, NO more bike rallies period...white or black."

I'm tellin' ya....this is the truth that no one can speak about. They can't find a way to shut just one down without being labeled racists. My feeling is, why not just POLICE the thing and lock-up whoever is acting ridiculous...white or black! But then, controlling drunken crowds is easier "said" than "done".


Way to go Jack.......

As I was reading this thread I was wondering when SOMEONE was gonna grow a pair.

Mike

[jeffklt]

OK, I'll say what no one else will...'cause I've talked to several LONG TIME Myrtle Beach business owners personally...

During Black Bike Week the behavior is so obscene and there is SO much open drunkeness, nudity and pilfering, many of the businesses have simply closed during that week. When people began to scream, "Racism! Prejudice!" they (the business owners) simply said, "OK then, NO more bike rallies period...white or black."

I'm tellin' ya....this is the truth that no one can speak about. They can't find a way to shut just one down without being labeled racists. My feeling is, why not just POLICE the thing and lock-up whoever is acting ridiculous...white or black! But then, controlling drunken crowds is easier "said" than "done".

Sometimes half truths end up sounding like the whole truth. I have lived in Myrtle Beach for over 25 years, own several businesses here and have served on the biker task force for the past seven years.

The quick and easy look appears as a black/white issue but in reality I would suggest it is much more of an age issue. I would estimate that the difference in average age between the two groups is probably about 30 years.

Those of us who live in this town of 25,000 and serve 10 million plus visitors a year are keenly aware that community standards from our visitor's home towns don't necessarily apply when they visit the beach. I have relatives who come to play golf in the spring and fall who frequent the strip joints while they are here and would not be caught dead in one at home. When the Shriners visit town, if they were as plentiful as the bikers, we would be having the same discussion about how to get rid of shriners.

There are elements, some from far outside our community, that would like to frame these issues in racial terms, both whites and blacks. I believe this is both unfair and in fact disguises the real issues which Jack nailed. It is about respectable behavior. This is after all, South Carolina, where ladies are raised to be ladies and gentlemen are raised to be gentlemen. We have always managed to look the other way regarding our wayward uncle or eccentric aunt, but when out of towners consistently thrw it in our faces, well at some point some of those fine ladies pull a derringer from the garter under their crenilins. Seems to me that is kind of where we are at this point and the politicians are just plain petrified at the sight of ladies and gents up in arms and willing to resolve these matters outside the purview of the politicians.

Actually it has gotten so convuluted that I have decided to temporarily relocate to Utah :rotf: Can't wait to get there.

[dshealey]

I lived in Myrtle Beach for 11 years ('73-'94), and the last time I was back there (about 4 years ago) I was pretty glad I had moved on. It was pretty quiet for the most part when I lived there, but it is pretty much Disney World now. When I first moved to Myrtle Beach, there was one McDonald's, and it was closed in Winter! Oh My how it changed!

[WildBil]

I have never been to Stugis during Bike Week. I was there last month - at 4:30, most stores were closed on the two blocks were most of the bars, tat parlors, t-shrit shops are and what becomes a parking lot for bike week.

Does any of that remind anybody of Mrytle Beach?

Sturgis' claim to fame is flat ground sitting at the edge of the Black Hills, 90 miles from Devi's Tower one way and Wall / the Badlands in the other. That, and a tolerant attitude based on the one week where it gets about 90% of its sales income. In a good years, the crowd at Sturgis during Bike Week doubles the population of South Dakota. Being an institution, places 90 miles away and everywhere in between sell $MM's of memoriabelia each year.

And if Sturugis was a :bmw:rally, would anybody want to see pictures of nude bikers? Well, I suppose not all of us have been doing RTE as long as I have, but.... as was said earlier, in a different context, its an age thing.

Myrtle Beach (http://www.pier14.com/earthcam.html) ≠ Sturgis (http://www.eaglevisionvideo.com/images/mainst.jpg)

BikeWeek Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqRyueJEPqg) hardly matters what year... more of a slide show.

[paalao]

Myrtle Beach.....lived there for two years :D , flying those banner planes :)
Taildraggers with company called Skysigns, Super Cruiser, my regular was SKY 1. :)

89-91

GREAT PLACE TO BE
But silly alcohol laws with minature bottles in bars!

[rkimmel2]

I've never been to Sturgis, I wonder if they have the same problems, re, drunk, nude...nude...drunk....mmmm....mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

man, I really have to get out more :histerica

really though, are those problems specific to black bike week or just more noticable? Its hard to tell sometimes but I don't attend very many events (been to americade once when I was working in the area) and a couple charity runs (with all the harley folks on my yamaha or beemer) so my experience is limited.


Having been to Black Bike Week with friends, I can say that most of the problems are caused by its confinement to a small, historically African-American town sandwiched between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach called Atlantic Beach. White businesses including the bigger biker bars have been closing in Myrtle for years to avoid Black patrons from Atlantic Beach. Also, the event has a strong history of both White and Police provocations during the event. Anyone who has been to Spokes out on Route 9 during White Bike Week can verify that acting like children is not an exclusively Black characteristic.

[jrlakin]

I was down there at the end of "Bike Week" and at the start of "Black Bike Week" and frankly I don't blame people there who want to ban it. I would too! I will never go back, and frankly there isn't much good riding down there anyway.

[nctarheels]

my 2cents, where ever you have a large group, lots and lots of alcohol and women (dressed?) bad things are bound to happen...we must not forget that the "biker" mentality is a black and a white thing...

[Bmyrrh]

Having been to Black Bike Week with friends, I can say that most of the problems are caused by its confinement to a small, historically African-American town sandwiched between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach called Atlantic Beach.

It isn't "confined" in any sense. Atlantic Beach was, during the era of Jim Crow, essentially a resort town for blacks. That history has resulted in it remaining a traditional resort are frequented purely out of traditonal and familiarity by the descendants of those who were welcome nowhere else. The Atlantic beach venues are, for many, the hotels, etc. of choice because of that, but it is absurd to suggest that there exist some official or unofficial "confinement to Atlantic beach. MOST of the activity related to BBW occurs in Myrtle Beach proper.

White businesses including the bigger biker bars have been closing in Myrtle for years to avoid Black patrons from Atlantic Beach.

It is lagely restaurants and bars that close, and they do so not because they are fools who think money has a color, but because of staffing problems. With rare exception business owners of all colors are perfectly happy to make a profit from people whether they love them, hate them or don't give a damn one way or the other. Some do just fine, but many of them attract a crowd that doesn't tip well, if at all. Wait staff are tip credit employees who not only rely on those tips to get along, they are forced to pay taxes on imputed income from tips even if they don't receive them. The result of that is employees acting in their own self-interest and scheduling their vacations when they would otherwise be working for virtually nothing.

Anyone who has been to Spokes out on Route 9 during White Bike Week can verify that acting like children is not an exclusively Black characteristic.

Now THAT is a fact!

[NCrider]

Myrtle Beach is a traffic nightmare. Lived in Wilmington eight years and visited from time to time. Went down recently to see Govt Mule at House of Blues. Left the bike at the hotel and took a cab... I'm glad I did... and there were no rallies going on. What is the draw??? There's nohing there. It's the flatlands.

[Casaba]

I LOVE spokes out on 9....sorry but i've gone to MB for years on my harley and had lots of fun...some of it too much fun but I don't care what anyone here says, the issue is about the sport bike week. Like was mentioned, tips non existent, damage to property, fighting, etc....

I have an LT for now but i'm not very uppity so I enjoy places like MB and even Sturgis, my riding isn't all about how many miles I can rack up.

I'm done with MB, plenty of other places that want my money

[nplenzick]

There are too many places that welcome bikers to worry about MB. I have been a vendor at Johnstown, Pa. (Thunder in the Valley) and Daytona for Bike week and Biketoberfest. Both of these towns and the associated towns welcome bikers and actively pursue them. I thought about doing MB but the town permit alone was $800.00 add that with the vendor fee and other expenses that your stuck with in that town, it hardly seemed worth it to me. Since MB has taken some of the crowd away from Daytona in recent years I would expect that DB will welcome the end of MB bike week with open arms!

[shadowofshoe]

There is an Easy Riders gathering in the small town of Chillicothe Ohio and it sounds like a crazy party............I mean CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!

Used to be in Columbus but "they" said no more....Same deal as the bike week ...............but white.


Mike

[Florian]

There is an Easy Riders gathering in the small town of Chillicothe Ohio and it sounds like a crazy party............I mean CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!

Used to be in Columbus but "they" said no more....Same deal as the bike week ...............but white.


Mike
The rodeo...been there, its nuts. Makes Myrtle look like Disneyland.

F

[Casaba]

yep, they do it in Wilson NC too. It's a wild party

[rkimmel2]

All this aside, if you want a fun, not too crazy bike week, try Ocean City, MD in September (11-14). All business welcome you with open arms and off season discounts. This year the theme is "this year we ride" with multiple venues as opposed to a single sight. Just google Delmarva Bike week for details.

[Search49]

This is a very touchy subject. But I see allot of tip toeing here. I understand why, but when the facts are the facts, the truth can sometimes open the path for discusion that may enlighten the subject in a positive light.

If you remember a little ways back Atlanta had the same problem with positive. Yes, positive brought in tons of money and some interesting characters, but in the long run was it worth it? Let's explore this for a quick second. Both non violent and violent crimes increased, traffic was murder, crowds of people were in places you never thought you see people. Business owners elected to close their businesses instead of making a little bit of money. The cops were so scattered alot of them had to work overtime or even part-time jobs just to show there was some kind of law enforcement.

Now Atlanta has had many, many bike events where these kind of activities never effected a city so much. I use to sit on the board of the MOD and we put together the largest motorcycle event every year east of the Mississippi. Yes, you had some crime such as drunkness, some speeding but this is normnal. Most of the crowd is Harley based and a older crowd. This crowd is interested in the ride and the event. The second element is interested in speed, stunts, booze and women. Alot of it may have to do with the MTV videos or the desired lifestyle. Who knows, but more importantly who cares.

Well I care, as a biker I hate seeing signs that are posted that state, No Bikes Allow. Here in Atlanta we have a development called Atlantic Station, it's loaded with resturants, shops and other places of interest that responsible bikers would visit. And you see more and more of these signs popping up.

Atlanta got rid of Freaknik and it basically moved to SC. Atlanta suffered for about a year, and yes the race card was played. If Atlanta was struggling, what are Mytle Beach's options? The race card is going to be played no matter what.

After Mytle Beach, I bet you $1 that Daytona Beach is going to be next!

[rkimmel2]

What is/was "positive"?

[Search49]

I sorta lost it there, I guess the postive side is: Cops, cities, and others realize who the problem is with, however they can't just come out and say who. But they do realize that there are responsible riders who obey the laws and cause little if no trouble. We are afforded certain passes because of the type of bikes we ride and I guess I could throw our ages in this bracket. I've been pulled over numerous times for slightly speeding (65 in a 55 etc...) and have never recieved a ticket. I do get " I just pulled you over to let you know you need to slow down a bit" I also get comments such as "I'm glad your wearing the proper clothing" My license has never been run in any of these stops. However I have seen the same officers pull over the sportbikers and they run license check insurance and even drag a few of them to jail. In general sportbikers are not all problems, you have a handful of nuts who have people thinking all bikers are the same. But the public is smarter than the average bear. When it comes to large gatherings, you can tell the difference in attitude with the locals.

[rkimmel2]

I guess I still don't get it. Do the cops think that the trouble comes from young riders on sports bikes, Black riders on wings? You said that we are all tip toeing around the real issue. What real issue? Are you implying that because we are old, ride rich guys' beemers and wear $1000.00 worth of crap, we get a pass? Thank goodness the cops "realize" who the problem is with. Perhaps based on that knowledge they should just mail out the tickets in advance. After all, pre judging is a time honored tradition.

Reading this thread, it is hard to deny that there are very real regional differences in attitude among us. I'm outta here.

[Dustoff498]

Things happens up in peaceful Sturgis too! Check this out:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008107160_sturgis12m0.html

And there is a discussion going on here:

http://wordpress.com/tag/hells-angels/

Jostein
Blue Knights Norway I