Post by freebird on Aug 24, 2009 9:10:39 GMT -6
Biker for Council
Businessman and Biker Don Emery Believes Local Government Should Be "Winning Customers," Not Driving Them Away
by Kimberly Moore - for Weekly Surge
Weekly Surge
Don Emery - photo by Scott Smallin, Weekly Surge.
Want to run for office in Myrtle Beach?
Don Emery is a legend in Myrtle Beach. His happy-go-lucky Irish nature and his big heart and dogged persistence have made him a Grand Strand success story. Known to many as “Donny Dog House,” if you don’t know him, you’ve probably had a drink or two in one of his establishments. In 1995, Emery opened a bar on the southern end of downtown Myrtle Beach and called it the Dog House. Though he found his niche with bikers, he endeared himself to locals in the service industry by being considerate of their often late-night schedules and staying open well beyond the 2 a.m. closing observed by most bars. For years, he worked hard building and expanding his business, and always took time to give back to the place where he found his success. Approaching his 40th birthday, Emery had been looking forward to easing up a little on the workload, making time to travel a bit. But all that changed last summer, when the city of Myrtle Beach’s elected officials did the unthinkable – they declared war on that most venerable and long standing of Myrtle Beach institutions, the biker rallies. Stunned that our elected leaders would seek to turn away what he estimates to be between $300 million to half a billion dollars in revenue the rallies bring in, and keenly aware of the impact it would have on our local economy, Emery decided to fight back. As the filing period opens today for candidates in the Nov. 3, 2009, local city council elections, Don Emery is throwing his hat into the ring, and it’s not just about the bikers. “I’m not a one issue candidate,” he says. “My city is hurting on many levels, and it needs help.”
Don Emery was born a Jersey boy, raised in the bar and restaurant business. Emery and his family lived in an apartment above a steakhouse named Morrie’s Acres, owned by his mother. (Emery’s father died when he was 7). “In this business, the people you work with are like family,” he says. “I was raised by cooks, dishwashers, busboys, bartenders – it was a very eclectic and hardworking group of good, blue collar people.” He was accepted into Coastal Carolina University in the fall of 1988, and put himself through school as many do, waiting tables and bartending. “One of the first jobs I had in Myrtle Beach was at the Oceanfront Grill, on Ocean Boulevard,” says Emery, remembering the days when the Pavilion drew crowds from all over, and Myrtle Beach billed itself as Sun Fun City.
In 1995, at the age of 25, Emery opened the Dog House Bar and Grill, 607 S. Kings Highway, which would be followed by the Dog House North, 9814 N. Kings Highway, in 1998. From 1999-2008, he also owned the Rainbow House, 815 N. Kings Highway in downtown Myrtle Beach, which became one of several anchors for gay nightlife in the area. How does a single, straight biker become the owner of a gay bar? “Each person’s individual pursuit of happiness should be left up to them,” he says. “I don’t tell people how to live, and I don’t want them to tell me.” In 2002, he purchased the Steel Horse Saloon, located at 1213 Third Ave S., near U.S. 501.
His respect and affection for his patrons combined with good business sense meant success for the four properties, and Emery found himself busy overseeing a staff of up to 70 people. But it was the bike rallies that really put the Dog House on the map. Bikers flocked from all over to his bars and he employed over 150 people for the spring rallies, which accounted for 40 percent to 50 percent of his yearly sales.
Don Emery himself is a biker and a gentleman, the kind of guy who appreciates a nice shot of Grand Marnier and a good hand in poker. In 2005, after years of practice, Emery began to play poker professionally, playing on both the World Poker Tour and in the World Series of Poker. “I don’t consider poker gambling,” he explains. “It’s a game you study, and practice at.” He’s traveled all over, to places such as Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.; Tunica, Miss.; Los Angeles; as well as throughout the Bahamas. Emery is good at what he does, and he’s won a first-place bracelet, and placed second twice. “I do think it should be legal,” he says. “Like car racing, horse racing or golf, skill plays a big part.”
While enjoying the success of his bar businesses, he found taking care of all the daily operations had begun to take away from what he truly loved, which was being a man of the people. He explains, “I found myself becoming more of a business man, and I wasn’t enjoying it as much.” After 10 years of the long hours and late nights that go hand in hand in the service industry, Emery decided to scale back a bit. With the goal of being able to at least semi retire by his 40th birthday and travel more extensively on the professional poker circuit, Emery sold the Dog House North in 2006, then the Rainbow House a year later. By spring of 2008, the Dog House South was on the market, too. (The business sold several months ago.) He would hang on to the Steel Horse, recently renamed Donny’s Saloon.
While the city of Myrtle Beach had been complaining for years about the crime, traffic and noise the annual May rallies brought to the area, it was a tragedy over the 2008 Memorial Day Atlantic Beach Bike Week that brought the 69-year-old tradition of Myrtle Beach bike rallies to an end. In the early morning hours of May 25, 2008, shortly before 4 a.m., a rush of calls came in to local 911 dispatchers. A young man had been shot. The location was a beach house on Third Avenue North in downtown Myrtle Beach, near the still pulsing nightlife of Ocean Boulevard. The frantic caller’s voice begged for help, telling the 911 operator, “These guys, they tried to park in my front yard and they, they pulled out a gun.” On the ground, bleeding profusely from a single gunshot wound, was 20-year-old Coastal Carolina University student Corey Brooks. Within days, there were rumblings from Myrtle Beach city council that the rallies had worn out their welcome. “We’re just gonna shut it down,” councilman Mike Chestnut was quoted as saying in a May 29 interview with WBTW. “A young man being shot over a $10 or $20 parking fine … we’re not going to put up with that kind of behavior.” (Chestnut could not be reached for comment.) Lost in the uproar at the time was the fact that the shooter in the Brooks slaying wasn’t an out-of-town biker, but a 17-year-old Myrtle Beach High School student.
“People in positions of power and responsibility can’t be reactionary,” says Emery. “They never bothered to ask why a 17-year-old local high school student has a gun. Where’s the outrage over that?” He went to council meetings, and spoke out in favor of the rallies. “I’ve been there, sat on these things, on the Myrtle Beach Task Force, we’ve offered to help,” he says, referring to other local businesses who came out in support of the rallies. “We offered to move it, shorten the date, but they were so focused on Memorial Day.” He was disillusioned by what he calls an anti-business attitude on behalf of Myrtle Beach city government, the selective tourism he felt they were engaging in, and its potential to backfire in the city’s face. “When you elect leadership, you expect them to make intelligent decisions,” he says. In the midst of economic recession, it was not just the city of Myrtle Beach and its residents that would lose out on bike week revenue, he says, it’s the tens of thousands of people throughout Horry County that would be affected as well. “Myrtle Beach is the heartbeat of the Grand Strand. What happens here impacts everybody,” Emery says. “We have a fiscal responsibility to not only ourselves but neighboring towns to encourage and promote tourism.”
Shortly after the Brooks shooting, the Myrtle Beach City Council approved a property tax increase. “We paid tax money for an advertising campaign telling tourists not to come to Myrtle Beach,” Emery says with exasperation. The group Take Back May was formed, saying it represented a silent majority; people who stood behind the city’s decision to end the rallies. “A silent majority? More like a vocal minority,” says Emery. “If you disagree, put it on a ballot and let’s vote on it.” Emery dismisses the idea that something else – Military Appreciation Days, sports tournaments or lifestyle conventions – could replace the revenue built up over 69 years with the Harley-Davidson rally. Love ’em or hate ’em, Emery insists, “There is nothing – nothing – that can replace bike week. It’s No. 1.”
In an email response to a request for comment on this story, Myrtle Beach Public Information Officer Mark Kruea writes, “The rallies had grown too large, lasted too long, were too loud and too boisterous and, sadly, were too deadly on the roadways. To hear the rally supporters, you’d think May was the biggest month, economically, of the whole year. Not so. May was the fourth or fifth best month, and even those numbers had been in decline.” Kruea adds, “No one should be surprised that the city finally said ‘no, thanks’ to three weeks of motorcycle rallies. The only surprise, possibly, is that it took so long.”
By the end of that turbulent summer, city council had worked out a way to reign in the rallies with 15 new noise and nuisance ordinances, as well as a helmet and protective eye gear law that thumbed its nose at state jurisdiction. The ordinances were passed Sept. 24, 2008, and less than a week later, B&M Custom Cycles on Sixth Avenue South in Myrtle Beach became the first in a string off businesses that would close over the winter. A downtown bike week hub for 19 years, B&M expressed its opinion with a sign visible to locals and tourists alike driving down U.S. 17 Business – “You suck, MB City Council.”
“Basically, you start to see the writing on the wall,” says Emery. “When city government acts in an anti-business manner, people get fed up.” Though most of the ordinances were not in effect for the fall 2008 bike week, the word was out. The fall rally saw low turn-out and a strong police presence, with double the number of citations written in previous years. At traffic checkpoints, advance warning was given on the new helmet laws and noise ordinances that would be going into effect over the winter. “That was a nice little rally we built from scratch over the last 10 years,” says Emery ruefully. “There was nothing going on here in the month of October.” Emery fought the ordinances on behalf of himself, his friends, employees and the community at large. An injunction was filed in the South Carolina State Supreme Court with Emery as the lead defendant, declaring the noise ordinances and helmet and protective eye gear laws invalid, void and unenforceable. The suit is still pending. “They’ve passed all these laws to run off bikers and ‘bring back families,’ but the family structure isn’t what it used to be,” says Emery. He says it’s selective tourism, pointing out the long lines, the crowds and the noise that come with the summer months. “Fourth of July or Bike Week, what’s the difference?” says Emery. “It’s a matter of perspective.”
As the month of May approached, residents wondered if the bikers might still come. “We expected it to be bad,” says Emery, wincing at the memory of the spring rally. “It wasn’t just bad; it was tragic.” For suspecting and unsuspecting tourists alike who ventured in those weekends, police roadblocks met them on U.S. 501. A wide net was cast, with frustrated families and visiting golfers caught up in the catch. Many bikers avoided the Myrtle Beach city limits like the plague, and local businesses reported their profits down as much as 80 percent. Emery says, “I was outraged for my staff. My key people lost $3,000-$4,000 in tip money from the events, money that would usually get spent on braces for kids, down payments on houses, new cars. Particularly this year, many were just looking forward to paying down credit card debts and bills from the lean winter months.” Emery was in a position where he could withstand the loss of income, but others weren’t so fortunate. “I have a three-piece band I usually book, but I couldn’t use them this year,” says Emery with obvious regret. “Between them they have nine kids, and the loss of income for them was over $6,000. That’s the people I feel sorry for.”
Emery has great empathy for the working people who keep Myrtle Beach running. “These are good people, raising families,” he says, of the tens of thousands of people employed in the local hospitality industry. “You’ve got college students bartending and waiting tables, single mothers, people open to finding their success, the same as I did, in a community like this.”
The city of Myrtle Beach, with its motto “First in Service,” depends heavily on hospitality workers to handle the millions of visitors who come to our shores each year, and in return, Emery feels these mostly blue collar laborers need a city council that will protect their best interests. “You can work at a place like AVX Corporation, make $50,000-$60,000 a year and be middle class. The middle class in Myrtle Beach owns a business,” he says. “Then the city comes in and raises the taxes.” Emery insists it’s not a question of not raising taxes in Myrtle
Beach, it’s an issue of lowering them to relieve the tax burden on citizens. “The joke was you work three months out of the year just to pay your taxes,” he says. “Now I work six months out of the year to pay taxes. It’s insane.”
It’s Wednesday night at Donny’s Saloon, and over the bar, a banner bears the name of the local group who is supporting Emery in the coming elections. The group is H.E.L.P., and the acronym stands for Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians. Trevor Tarleton is the founder of H.E.L.P., and he first crossed paths with Emery in 1988, on the campus of Coastal Carolina University, where they were fraternity brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon. They’ve been friends ever since. Having spent the last 10 years working as a promotions manager for local businesses, Tarleton became concerned about the direction of what he fondly refers to as “America’s Beach” was taking.
“Over the years, I’ve watched the city I love and call home change due to the influence of a group of politically active homeowners from the city’s high income neighborhoods,” says Tarleton, noting that of the seven Myrtle Beach City Council members, only one, Michael Chestnut, lives south of 55th Avenue North. (Emery lives in the south end of Myrtle Beach.) One of H.E.L.P.’s missions is to petition for a referendum in the Nov. 3 elections for a change to single-member voter districts. “Single-member districts would mean that the city council members would be elected the same way as our United States Congress and state legislators. To be elected a potential candidate must reside in and be elected by the citizens that live in his/her voting district,” says Tarleton. “This gives the voter more power and the ability to vote for the candidate who would best represent the will of the voters in their district.”
H.E.L.P. is also petitioning for a referendum on the 1% Local Option Tourism Development Fee, a.k.a. the 1% Ad Tax, in the local elections on Nov. 3. Among the group’s primary goals is to get as many voters registered in the city of Myrtle Beach as possible before the Oct. 3 voter registration deadline. The group supports Don Emery both as a candidate for city council, as well as to oppose current Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes, if need be. H.E.L.P. is hosting a meet and greet with Emery this Friday night, Aug. 21, at Studebakers Nightclub, 21st Avenue North in Myrtle Beach. A $10 donation is requested, and complimentary refreshments will be provided. “I have known Don for over 20 years, and we feel the same way about a lot of things.” he says. “The reason H.E.L.P. is supporting Don Emery? He is pro-business.”
From the kitchen of Donny’s Saloon, Emery emerges carrying a plate of grilled Italian bread and pesto that he passes around to eager customers at the bar. “I’m here every night,” he says. “These are my friends and this is what I enjoy doing.” Emery is an avid cook, and as he busies himself in the kitchen making a pork roast he’ll serve later, Tricia Cunningham sits at the bar peeling potatoes. Cunningham wears a lot of hats – writer, motivational speaker, radio talk show host, independent businesswoman. She is handling media relations and acting as a spokesperson for both Emery’s campaign as well as for H.E.L.P. “Don Emery has been a leader in this community for over 20 years,” says Cunningham. “He started on the sidelines in the service industry, and grew, along with Myrtle Beach, to become a well-respected and successful businessman.” Hardly a month goes by that Emery isn’t playing host to fundraisers at his business or participating in local bike runs. He holds several fundraisers a year for the Children’s Recovery Network, and hosts a Christmas in July event each year that benefits local children through ABATE of Horry County. On Sept. 9, Donny’s Saloon will host a car cruise to benefit the Grand Strand Humane Society.
Cunningham says that in both Emery’s professional and private lives, he often goes out of his way to help others. “Donny is a man who will do anything for those in need,” she says. She notes that Emery is also a big believer in keeping his money local, supporting local business and causes, employing local bands and musicians, yet at the same time, he values the people throughout the country who hold a special place in their hearts for Myrtle Beach. “He listens to the people of the community and visitors alike,” says Cunningham. “He has every quality that makes a leader strong – skill, motivation, education, support, passion and heart. He is exactly what Myrtle Beach needs.”
Politics can be a dirty business, and Don Emery knows what he’s in for. As for bikers and anyone else, his adage is “live and let live.” He says, “I’ve always been a strong supporter of law enforcement, but I believe our local force needs to be directed and led in a different direction.” Emery would like to get law enforcement off the highway and back into the neighborhoods. “There are violent crimes going on out there, and the police are directed to go out and write traffic tickets,” he says. He feels it’s time for Myrtle Beach to look toward the future – developing a mass transit system, and working toward developing the area as a year-round destination.
For Emery, running for Myrtle Beach city council, or eventually mayor, isn’t a matter of power or prestige, it’s a matter of civic responsibility. “I was going to sell my bars and go out on the professional poker circuit,” he says. “This [running for council] is far more noble and pressing.” Emery would like to see the best interests of the people who live, work and play here better served, and he says he would like to help Myrtle Beach recover from the black eye it’s received with all the bad press over the rallies. For Emery, it all boils down to one point. “When you’re not winning customers, you’re losing them,” he says, “and at this point, we’re losing customers.”
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Businessman and Biker Don Emery Believes Local Government Should Be "Winning Customers," Not Driving Them Away
by Kimberly Moore - for Weekly Surge
Weekly Surge
Don Emery - photo by Scott Smallin, Weekly Surge.
Want to run for office in Myrtle Beach?
Don Emery is a legend in Myrtle Beach. His happy-go-lucky Irish nature and his big heart and dogged persistence have made him a Grand Strand success story. Known to many as “Donny Dog House,” if you don’t know him, you’ve probably had a drink or two in one of his establishments. In 1995, Emery opened a bar on the southern end of downtown Myrtle Beach and called it the Dog House. Though he found his niche with bikers, he endeared himself to locals in the service industry by being considerate of their often late-night schedules and staying open well beyond the 2 a.m. closing observed by most bars. For years, he worked hard building and expanding his business, and always took time to give back to the place where he found his success. Approaching his 40th birthday, Emery had been looking forward to easing up a little on the workload, making time to travel a bit. But all that changed last summer, when the city of Myrtle Beach’s elected officials did the unthinkable – they declared war on that most venerable and long standing of Myrtle Beach institutions, the biker rallies. Stunned that our elected leaders would seek to turn away what he estimates to be between $300 million to half a billion dollars in revenue the rallies bring in, and keenly aware of the impact it would have on our local economy, Emery decided to fight back. As the filing period opens today for candidates in the Nov. 3, 2009, local city council elections, Don Emery is throwing his hat into the ring, and it’s not just about the bikers. “I’m not a one issue candidate,” he says. “My city is hurting on many levels, and it needs help.”
Don Emery was born a Jersey boy, raised in the bar and restaurant business. Emery and his family lived in an apartment above a steakhouse named Morrie’s Acres, owned by his mother. (Emery’s father died when he was 7). “In this business, the people you work with are like family,” he says. “I was raised by cooks, dishwashers, busboys, bartenders – it was a very eclectic and hardworking group of good, blue collar people.” He was accepted into Coastal Carolina University in the fall of 1988, and put himself through school as many do, waiting tables and bartending. “One of the first jobs I had in Myrtle Beach was at the Oceanfront Grill, on Ocean Boulevard,” says Emery, remembering the days when the Pavilion drew crowds from all over, and Myrtle Beach billed itself as Sun Fun City.
In 1995, at the age of 25, Emery opened the Dog House Bar and Grill, 607 S. Kings Highway, which would be followed by the Dog House North, 9814 N. Kings Highway, in 1998. From 1999-2008, he also owned the Rainbow House, 815 N. Kings Highway in downtown Myrtle Beach, which became one of several anchors for gay nightlife in the area. How does a single, straight biker become the owner of a gay bar? “Each person’s individual pursuit of happiness should be left up to them,” he says. “I don’t tell people how to live, and I don’t want them to tell me.” In 2002, he purchased the Steel Horse Saloon, located at 1213 Third Ave S., near U.S. 501.
His respect and affection for his patrons combined with good business sense meant success for the four properties, and Emery found himself busy overseeing a staff of up to 70 people. But it was the bike rallies that really put the Dog House on the map. Bikers flocked from all over to his bars and he employed over 150 people for the spring rallies, which accounted for 40 percent to 50 percent of his yearly sales.
Don Emery himself is a biker and a gentleman, the kind of guy who appreciates a nice shot of Grand Marnier and a good hand in poker. In 2005, after years of practice, Emery began to play poker professionally, playing on both the World Poker Tour and in the World Series of Poker. “I don’t consider poker gambling,” he explains. “It’s a game you study, and practice at.” He’s traveled all over, to places such as Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.; Tunica, Miss.; Los Angeles; as well as throughout the Bahamas. Emery is good at what he does, and he’s won a first-place bracelet, and placed second twice. “I do think it should be legal,” he says. “Like car racing, horse racing or golf, skill plays a big part.”
While enjoying the success of his bar businesses, he found taking care of all the daily operations had begun to take away from what he truly loved, which was being a man of the people. He explains, “I found myself becoming more of a business man, and I wasn’t enjoying it as much.” After 10 years of the long hours and late nights that go hand in hand in the service industry, Emery decided to scale back a bit. With the goal of being able to at least semi retire by his 40th birthday and travel more extensively on the professional poker circuit, Emery sold the Dog House North in 2006, then the Rainbow House a year later. By spring of 2008, the Dog House South was on the market, too. (The business sold several months ago.) He would hang on to the Steel Horse, recently renamed Donny’s Saloon.
While the city of Myrtle Beach had been complaining for years about the crime, traffic and noise the annual May rallies brought to the area, it was a tragedy over the 2008 Memorial Day Atlantic Beach Bike Week that brought the 69-year-old tradition of Myrtle Beach bike rallies to an end. In the early morning hours of May 25, 2008, shortly before 4 a.m., a rush of calls came in to local 911 dispatchers. A young man had been shot. The location was a beach house on Third Avenue North in downtown Myrtle Beach, near the still pulsing nightlife of Ocean Boulevard. The frantic caller’s voice begged for help, telling the 911 operator, “These guys, they tried to park in my front yard and they, they pulled out a gun.” On the ground, bleeding profusely from a single gunshot wound, was 20-year-old Coastal Carolina University student Corey Brooks. Within days, there were rumblings from Myrtle Beach city council that the rallies had worn out their welcome. “We’re just gonna shut it down,” councilman Mike Chestnut was quoted as saying in a May 29 interview with WBTW. “A young man being shot over a $10 or $20 parking fine … we’re not going to put up with that kind of behavior.” (Chestnut could not be reached for comment.) Lost in the uproar at the time was the fact that the shooter in the Brooks slaying wasn’t an out-of-town biker, but a 17-year-old Myrtle Beach High School student.
“People in positions of power and responsibility can’t be reactionary,” says Emery. “They never bothered to ask why a 17-year-old local high school student has a gun. Where’s the outrage over that?” He went to council meetings, and spoke out in favor of the rallies. “I’ve been there, sat on these things, on the Myrtle Beach Task Force, we’ve offered to help,” he says, referring to other local businesses who came out in support of the rallies. “We offered to move it, shorten the date, but they were so focused on Memorial Day.” He was disillusioned by what he calls an anti-business attitude on behalf of Myrtle Beach city government, the selective tourism he felt they were engaging in, and its potential to backfire in the city’s face. “When you elect leadership, you expect them to make intelligent decisions,” he says. In the midst of economic recession, it was not just the city of Myrtle Beach and its residents that would lose out on bike week revenue, he says, it’s the tens of thousands of people throughout Horry County that would be affected as well. “Myrtle Beach is the heartbeat of the Grand Strand. What happens here impacts everybody,” Emery says. “We have a fiscal responsibility to not only ourselves but neighboring towns to encourage and promote tourism.”
Shortly after the Brooks shooting, the Myrtle Beach City Council approved a property tax increase. “We paid tax money for an advertising campaign telling tourists not to come to Myrtle Beach,” Emery says with exasperation. The group Take Back May was formed, saying it represented a silent majority; people who stood behind the city’s decision to end the rallies. “A silent majority? More like a vocal minority,” says Emery. “If you disagree, put it on a ballot and let’s vote on it.” Emery dismisses the idea that something else – Military Appreciation Days, sports tournaments or lifestyle conventions – could replace the revenue built up over 69 years with the Harley-Davidson rally. Love ’em or hate ’em, Emery insists, “There is nothing – nothing – that can replace bike week. It’s No. 1.”
In an email response to a request for comment on this story, Myrtle Beach Public Information Officer Mark Kruea writes, “The rallies had grown too large, lasted too long, were too loud and too boisterous and, sadly, were too deadly on the roadways. To hear the rally supporters, you’d think May was the biggest month, economically, of the whole year. Not so. May was the fourth or fifth best month, and even those numbers had been in decline.” Kruea adds, “No one should be surprised that the city finally said ‘no, thanks’ to three weeks of motorcycle rallies. The only surprise, possibly, is that it took so long.”
By the end of that turbulent summer, city council had worked out a way to reign in the rallies with 15 new noise and nuisance ordinances, as well as a helmet and protective eye gear law that thumbed its nose at state jurisdiction. The ordinances were passed Sept. 24, 2008, and less than a week later, B&M Custom Cycles on Sixth Avenue South in Myrtle Beach became the first in a string off businesses that would close over the winter. A downtown bike week hub for 19 years, B&M expressed its opinion with a sign visible to locals and tourists alike driving down U.S. 17 Business – “You suck, MB City Council.”
“Basically, you start to see the writing on the wall,” says Emery. “When city government acts in an anti-business manner, people get fed up.” Though most of the ordinances were not in effect for the fall 2008 bike week, the word was out. The fall rally saw low turn-out and a strong police presence, with double the number of citations written in previous years. At traffic checkpoints, advance warning was given on the new helmet laws and noise ordinances that would be going into effect over the winter. “That was a nice little rally we built from scratch over the last 10 years,” says Emery ruefully. “There was nothing going on here in the month of October.” Emery fought the ordinances on behalf of himself, his friends, employees and the community at large. An injunction was filed in the South Carolina State Supreme Court with Emery as the lead defendant, declaring the noise ordinances and helmet and protective eye gear laws invalid, void and unenforceable. The suit is still pending. “They’ve passed all these laws to run off bikers and ‘bring back families,’ but the family structure isn’t what it used to be,” says Emery. He says it’s selective tourism, pointing out the long lines, the crowds and the noise that come with the summer months. “Fourth of July or Bike Week, what’s the difference?” says Emery. “It’s a matter of perspective.”
As the month of May approached, residents wondered if the bikers might still come. “We expected it to be bad,” says Emery, wincing at the memory of the spring rally. “It wasn’t just bad; it was tragic.” For suspecting and unsuspecting tourists alike who ventured in those weekends, police roadblocks met them on U.S. 501. A wide net was cast, with frustrated families and visiting golfers caught up in the catch. Many bikers avoided the Myrtle Beach city limits like the plague, and local businesses reported their profits down as much as 80 percent. Emery says, “I was outraged for my staff. My key people lost $3,000-$4,000 in tip money from the events, money that would usually get spent on braces for kids, down payments on houses, new cars. Particularly this year, many were just looking forward to paying down credit card debts and bills from the lean winter months.” Emery was in a position where he could withstand the loss of income, but others weren’t so fortunate. “I have a three-piece band I usually book, but I couldn’t use them this year,” says Emery with obvious regret. “Between them they have nine kids, and the loss of income for them was over $6,000. That’s the people I feel sorry for.”
Emery has great empathy for the working people who keep Myrtle Beach running. “These are good people, raising families,” he says, of the tens of thousands of people employed in the local hospitality industry. “You’ve got college students bartending and waiting tables, single mothers, people open to finding their success, the same as I did, in a community like this.”
The city of Myrtle Beach, with its motto “First in Service,” depends heavily on hospitality workers to handle the millions of visitors who come to our shores each year, and in return, Emery feels these mostly blue collar laborers need a city council that will protect their best interests. “You can work at a place like AVX Corporation, make $50,000-$60,000 a year and be middle class. The middle class in Myrtle Beach owns a business,” he says. “Then the city comes in and raises the taxes.” Emery insists it’s not a question of not raising taxes in Myrtle
Beach, it’s an issue of lowering them to relieve the tax burden on citizens. “The joke was you work three months out of the year just to pay your taxes,” he says. “Now I work six months out of the year to pay taxes. It’s insane.”
It’s Wednesday night at Donny’s Saloon, and over the bar, a banner bears the name of the local group who is supporting Emery in the coming elections. The group is H.E.L.P., and the acronym stands for Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians. Trevor Tarleton is the founder of H.E.L.P., and he first crossed paths with Emery in 1988, on the campus of Coastal Carolina University, where they were fraternity brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon. They’ve been friends ever since. Having spent the last 10 years working as a promotions manager for local businesses, Tarleton became concerned about the direction of what he fondly refers to as “America’s Beach” was taking.
“Over the years, I’ve watched the city I love and call home change due to the influence of a group of politically active homeowners from the city’s high income neighborhoods,” says Tarleton, noting that of the seven Myrtle Beach City Council members, only one, Michael Chestnut, lives south of 55th Avenue North. (Emery lives in the south end of Myrtle Beach.) One of H.E.L.P.’s missions is to petition for a referendum in the Nov. 3 elections for a change to single-member voter districts. “Single-member districts would mean that the city council members would be elected the same way as our United States Congress and state legislators. To be elected a potential candidate must reside in and be elected by the citizens that live in his/her voting district,” says Tarleton. “This gives the voter more power and the ability to vote for the candidate who would best represent the will of the voters in their district.”
H.E.L.P. is also petitioning for a referendum on the 1% Local Option Tourism Development Fee, a.k.a. the 1% Ad Tax, in the local elections on Nov. 3. Among the group’s primary goals is to get as many voters registered in the city of Myrtle Beach as possible before the Oct. 3 voter registration deadline. The group supports Don Emery both as a candidate for city council, as well as to oppose current Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes, if need be. H.E.L.P. is hosting a meet and greet with Emery this Friday night, Aug. 21, at Studebakers Nightclub, 21st Avenue North in Myrtle Beach. A $10 donation is requested, and complimentary refreshments will be provided. “I have known Don for over 20 years, and we feel the same way about a lot of things.” he says. “The reason H.E.L.P. is supporting Don Emery? He is pro-business.”
From the kitchen of Donny’s Saloon, Emery emerges carrying a plate of grilled Italian bread and pesto that he passes around to eager customers at the bar. “I’m here every night,” he says. “These are my friends and this is what I enjoy doing.” Emery is an avid cook, and as he busies himself in the kitchen making a pork roast he’ll serve later, Tricia Cunningham sits at the bar peeling potatoes. Cunningham wears a lot of hats – writer, motivational speaker, radio talk show host, independent businesswoman. She is handling media relations and acting as a spokesperson for both Emery’s campaign as well as for H.E.L.P. “Don Emery has been a leader in this community for over 20 years,” says Cunningham. “He started on the sidelines in the service industry, and grew, along with Myrtle Beach, to become a well-respected and successful businessman.” Hardly a month goes by that Emery isn’t playing host to fundraisers at his business or participating in local bike runs. He holds several fundraisers a year for the Children’s Recovery Network, and hosts a Christmas in July event each year that benefits local children through ABATE of Horry County. On Sept. 9, Donny’s Saloon will host a car cruise to benefit the Grand Strand Humane Society.
Cunningham says that in both Emery’s professional and private lives, he often goes out of his way to help others. “Donny is a man who will do anything for those in need,” she says. She notes that Emery is also a big believer in keeping his money local, supporting local business and causes, employing local bands and musicians, yet at the same time, he values the people throughout the country who hold a special place in their hearts for Myrtle Beach. “He listens to the people of the community and visitors alike,” says Cunningham. “He has every quality that makes a leader strong – skill, motivation, education, support, passion and heart. He is exactly what Myrtle Beach needs.”
Politics can be a dirty business, and Don Emery knows what he’s in for. As for bikers and anyone else, his adage is “live and let live.” He says, “I’ve always been a strong supporter of law enforcement, but I believe our local force needs to be directed and led in a different direction.” Emery would like to get law enforcement off the highway and back into the neighborhoods. “There are violent crimes going on out there, and the police are directed to go out and write traffic tickets,” he says. He feels it’s time for Myrtle Beach to look toward the future – developing a mass transit system, and working toward developing the area as a year-round destination.
For Emery, running for Myrtle Beach city council, or eventually mayor, isn’t a matter of power or prestige, it’s a matter of civic responsibility. “I was going to sell my bars and go out on the professional poker circuit,” he says. “This [running for council] is far more noble and pressing.” Emery would like to see the best interests of the people who live, work and play here better served, and he says he would like to help Myrtle Beach recover from the black eye it’s received with all the bad press over the rallies. For Emery, it all boils down to one point. “When you’re not winning customers, you’re losing them,” he says, “and at this point, we’re losing customers.”
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