Myrtle Beach Bike Rallies on Life Support

As a part of my job, I get to drive to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina every day.  Despite what the local talk radio hosts say (I’m looking at you, Steve Porter), it’s a tourist town.  Almost everything that goes on in the area revolves around tourism and the service industry.  When Hard Rock Park opened a few months ago, it was a big deal for the entire area, to the point where the aforementioned radio hosts did a live broadcast from the amusement park.

As a coastal, tourism-oriented area, they are at the forefront on tourism and travel related issues.  And the biggest on their plate right now are the bike rallies that make the Grand Strand their home.  There’s three of them that go on each year.  Two of them are chopper-oriented, one of them is crotch-rocket oriented.  The major bike rally is the chopper rally in the middle of May.  The crotch-rockets come to town on Memorial Day weekend, and the second, smaller chopper rally is in October.

Right now, Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach have both registered their desire to see the bikers go away for good.  They’ve now both passed laws that will not allow vendors to apply for licenses to operate during the bike weeks.  The idea being, if there’s no vendors, there’s no reason to come down.  I’m not so sure this line of reasoning is accurate, but it does give the impression of being an anti-biker area, and thus will discourage people from coming.

There’s alot more to come on this issue, as there are passionate supporters and detractors from each side on this issue.