Myrtle Beach Wants to Establish Kangaroo Court

Myrtle Beach is really, really trying to crack down on the three motorcycle rallies that occur every year. As such, the city’s attorney has just proposed a giant set of laws that would mandate all sorts of onerous policies on Myrtle Beaches residents and businesses.

You can read all of the legalese at the city’s website: http://www.cityofmyrtlebeach.com/PDF%20Forms/Rally%20Options%20–%20DRAFT.pdf (Yes, I know they had to use spaces in all of their files, but that’s local government for you.)

As a way of quickly “disposing” all of the infractions that these laws will now create, the city has created the position of Administrative Hearing Officer. This officer, who will be chosen by a city administrator and is not publicly accountable, has full sway over all sorts of what are now called nuisance laws.

But basically, the judge can do whatever he or she wants. Rules on hearsay? Gone. Rules on evidence? Don’t need them. Basically, these administrative hearings are going to be the word of the police vs the word of an out-of-town biker. I can really see how this is going to serve justice. Completely.

But just in case you didn’t think that the City of Myrtle Beach came up with such a brilliant idea by itself, look at page 15, line 616:

2. Nothing in this Chapter shall affect the jurisdiction of any City Board, Commission or
Board established by the Code of the City of Des Plaines. Emphasis added

So Myrtle Beach cribbed this administrative judge thing from Des Plaines, Illinois. Some facts about Des Plaines:

• This was the city where John Wayne Gacy was discovered and captured.
• The McDonalds Museum is here.
• The two largest ethnic groups in Des Plaines are the Germans and the Poles. It may be this fact that lead Des Plaines to the establishment of an administrative hearing officer. Once you get those two groups next to each other… well I don’t have to tell you the rest of the story

So the whole idea of Myrtle Beach is to ordinance the bike rallies to death. Given the legal culture of the US, this was inevitably going to happen. But of course, it’s not the fine establishments that will bear the brunt of these laws and regulations, it will be the convenience stores, small hotels and bars that will be targeted. And motorcycles. Don’t forget motorcycles. Because despite all of the rules on motor vehicles in these laws, I bet no more than one or two cars get cited for any of these rules. Remember, this is meant to get those no-good, dirty out-of-towners away from MB so it can be a “family-friendly” tourist area. These laws will NOT be enforced against locals if the police can help it.

Ford Continues Unending Fall

From Bloomberg:

Ford Motor Co., the world’s third- larges automaker, expects U.S. industrywide auto sales this month to decline from a year earlier…

Fields declined to comment on details of the company’s plans to boost small-car production and to build U.S. versions of models made by its European unit. The company disclosed its general plans on June 20. Ford said it would bring the European version of the Focus small car to North America to replace an older version of the model made in the U.S.

I think this can be traced back to the redesign of the Taurus back in the late 90’s. I, and apparently alot of other people, liked the original version of the Taurus and the styling of the car. After the horrible redesign of the Taurus, most people went very, very far away from Ford cars. Ford Trucks maintained a place at the top.

This worked when gas was cheap. Ford had no problem with maintaining profitability when selling marked up trucks and SUVs, even as non-truck buyers left Ford and never came back. Fast forward to today, and Ford is in alot of trouble financially.

Ford suffers from a paradox: They have way too many models and yet rely on a particular market segment for sales. Compare Ford with Dodge, Toyota, Honda, and Chevrolet.

Ford has 19 models. Toyota also has 19, while Chevy has 20! One of the issues that Ford and the US automakers as a whole are dealing with is that they have way too many models to deal with. Yes, I know Toyota has that many as well, but the difference is the way the balance is with their model sales. Toyota only recently went into light-trucks/SUVs, compared with US automakers. Toyota doesn’t have the reliance on fuel dependent sales like the Big Three do.

So the easy solution would be to cut down on the number of models and simply the business model. But Ford has so many different power bases to satisfy (dealers, consumers, shareholders, factory workers/unions) that it may just be too difficult for them to do.

Meanwhile, Honda is a much more lean company in terms of models. They have room to expand compared to the other big automakers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come out ahead in terms of future growth.