Post by outhouseking on Jun 9, 2009 6:45:00 GMT -6
www.myrtlebeachcompass.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=391
Myrtle Beach News : Tom Rice is Taking Back May
By Becky Billingsley
Tuesday, June 9, 2009, Myrtle Beach - After a decade of listening to fellow Myrtle Beach residents complain about bike rallies, and then do nothing about them, Myrtle Beach tax lawyer Tom Rice decided to do something.
The 51-year-old married father of three 20-something sons was born in Charleston and moved to Myrtle Beach when he was 4 years old. He attended the University of South Carolina, graduated from its law school and worked in Charlotte for three years before coming back to the beach. In 1997 he was a founding partner in a law firm which is now Rice, MacDonald, Breeden & Hicks, located on 48th Avenue North. He and his family live on Ocean Boulevard.
Just Saying No
The Take Back May group, which is a legal corporation, came about as the collaboration of like-minded citizens who want to put an end to the area's two May motorcycle rallies within Myrtle Beach city limits. Tom is the corporation's president, and there are about 15 active members. The number of people who agree with their position on petitions is about 3,000.
Tom Rice is a tax lawyer who resides in Myrtle Beach and is president of the Take Back May Corp.
"The rallies had been a problem for a long time," Tom said on Monday in his firm's meeting room. "There would occasionally be an uproar about it, but it would die down after the rallies and nothing would happen. City council decided to take [the topic] up last June, so I went to the meeting. I heard three or four friends plead with council. Then council members were asked to state their positions on the rallies. Mike Chestnut started it off with ‘Enough is Enough'. They unanimously said they were against them."
"I was sitting in the audience, and I thought, ‘They are going to take heat for this.' So I decided to help. I went to more meetings. I approached the politicians about helping. This was going on a couple of months, then someone called me about starting Take Back May, and we started. I didn't start it; it was the people I heard speaking at city council, [like] Joyce Harris, Milton Karetas and Caroline Burroughs."
The handful of people who joined Tom in his efforts attended county council and city council meetings. They phoned and e-mailed each other about their Take Back May activities, but they've had only a couple of formally organized meetings. They talked early on about having an official committee with regular meetings, but they decided it was too cumbersome.
Their efforts and the mind-set of city council members were enough to make changes. Regulations were passed designed to make motorcyclists wear helmets, not congregate in public areas, and not have overly loud motorcycles. Vendor permits during the rally were rescinded, and the town officially and publicly proclaimed that all motorcycle rallies within the Myrtle Beach city limits were over. For good.
Slow Build-up
Tom says he remembers when the Harley rally consisted of a couple hundred motorcyclists meeting at The Pad in the Ocean Drive section of North Myrtle Beach. As time went on the rally grew, and finally expanded so much it spilled down into Myrtle Beach. For the past 10 years, Tom says, the Harley rally held in the first half of May, and the Memorial Day weekend bike rally became too rowdy and raucous to bear.
He has been infuriated by lewd behavior that is put on public display, such females riding motorcycles dressed in thong bikinis, females engaging in displays of sexual simulation in public, and organized biker games such as "bobbing for dildos."
"All that crap I think makes [our community] look terrible," he said. "I don't care what they do inside closed doors, but when it is in public and when it is where schoolchildren can see it on the street, and when they advertise it...I think it makes us look bad to potential...tourists."
Dangerous Streets
In addition to the noise and rowdiness of the rallies, Tom says the amount of crime, traffic injuries and traffic deaths during May was becoming out of control. He has a folder of statistical data obtained from city and county police departments showing how from 2006 thru 2008 an average of seven cyclists die in Horry County traffic accidents during the fourteen days of the rallies and an average of five die in the City of Myrtle Beach. This represents half the traffic fatalities in the city for the entire year. The number of traffic injuries averages around 200, and the incidence of felony crime rises 375 percent compared to the rest of the year.
This year, no cyclists were killed in the city of Myrtle Beach where the helmet law was adopted, he said. Three people died in the county during the two rallies. Not one of those killed were wearing a helmet. He thinks the adoption of the helmet law clearly saved lives.
Hit in the Pocketbook
As for lost revenue experienced by Myrtle Beach business owners and their employees because not as many bikers visited this year, Tom says while he feels compassion for anyone suffering from a loss of income, he says this year was the perfect time to end the rallies.
"I don't want anybody hurt financially," he said. "I want to see the Mom and Pops make money. I think [banishing the rallies] will hurt in the short term, but in the long run it will be better...I knew going into this there would be a transitional period, and that it would adversely affect some peoples' businesses for that 10-day period in May. But I think the claims of losses are overstated for that 10-day period. I think in the long run we'll all be better off if we can rid ourselves of this reputation. I suspect the bike rally numbers would have been down no matter what happened this year, because of the economy. Rally proponents say it was a bad time to [enact anti-biker regulations], but I say it was a great time to do it because numbers would have been down anyway. I don't want to see anybody suffer."
Myrtle Beach City Council members have a duty to "do what they can to bring in other events to replace that revenue," Tom said, adding that he thinks claims that there is no way to replace that income are "ludicrous." His friend John Springs, who runs Caledonia Golf and Fish Club and True Blue golf club, says he had the best May numbers in seven years. He speculates that hotels running better package deals because of a lack of bikers to fill rooms may have been responsible.
Some of Tom's friends were delighted to have less business, such as an orthopedic surgeon who normally gets only a few hours' sleep over the motorcycle weeks.
A group of people who were angry over the city's efforts to end motorcycle rallies started a campaign called "Not a Dime in '09," where they vowed to not spend any money within Myrtle Beach city limits. Tom said he was not disappointed when those people stayed away for the rallies.
He was also not disappointed in how city officials handled ending the rallies.
"I think City Council did exactly what they should have done," he said. "I was amazed at how bold they were and how effective their actions were so far. But I do think they need to do something to help bring events to replace the rallies, to help the Mom and Pop hotels, businesses at Broadway at the Beach. Even though I don't think a 10-day period in May is going to make or break them."
Letting Voters Decide
Tom says efforts to unseat Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes and city council members by groups opposed to Take Back May, such as HELP (Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians), and BOOST (Business Owners Organized to Save Tourism), are part of the democratic process.
"If they are successful, there will be amendments to the laws," he said. "But I don't think they'll be successful. I think the majority of people who live here don't want the rallies, don't want their lives disrupted, don't want crime and injuries and deaths. They don't want it any more."
Take Back May is hosting a thank-you rally from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Myrtle Beach Train Depot to thank the mayor and city council members for their efforts to end the May bike rallies. Tricia Cunningham, spokeswoman for HELP, said that members of HELP, ABATE and BOOST are going to attend the rally to show quiet opposition to Take Back May.
Tom said the Wednesday event is a political rally to thank city officials, and he thinks for others to disrupt it would be in poor taste.
"Myrtle Beach has been like a teenager for a long time, and this is a growing pain," he said. "It's part of cleaning our act up...My goal is to do away with the rallies. I prefer they go away from all of the Grand Strand, but it's not up to me. I'm just trying to make the community a better place to live."
Myrtle Beach News : Tom Rice is Taking Back May
By Becky Billingsley
Tuesday, June 9, 2009, Myrtle Beach - After a decade of listening to fellow Myrtle Beach residents complain about bike rallies, and then do nothing about them, Myrtle Beach tax lawyer Tom Rice decided to do something.
The 51-year-old married father of three 20-something sons was born in Charleston and moved to Myrtle Beach when he was 4 years old. He attended the University of South Carolina, graduated from its law school and worked in Charlotte for three years before coming back to the beach. In 1997 he was a founding partner in a law firm which is now Rice, MacDonald, Breeden & Hicks, located on 48th Avenue North. He and his family live on Ocean Boulevard.
Just Saying No
The Take Back May group, which is a legal corporation, came about as the collaboration of like-minded citizens who want to put an end to the area's two May motorcycle rallies within Myrtle Beach city limits. Tom is the corporation's president, and there are about 15 active members. The number of people who agree with their position on petitions is about 3,000.
Tom Rice is a tax lawyer who resides in Myrtle Beach and is president of the Take Back May Corp.
"The rallies had been a problem for a long time," Tom said on Monday in his firm's meeting room. "There would occasionally be an uproar about it, but it would die down after the rallies and nothing would happen. City council decided to take [the topic] up last June, so I went to the meeting. I heard three or four friends plead with council. Then council members were asked to state their positions on the rallies. Mike Chestnut started it off with ‘Enough is Enough'. They unanimously said they were against them."
"I was sitting in the audience, and I thought, ‘They are going to take heat for this.' So I decided to help. I went to more meetings. I approached the politicians about helping. This was going on a couple of months, then someone called me about starting Take Back May, and we started. I didn't start it; it was the people I heard speaking at city council, [like] Joyce Harris, Milton Karetas and Caroline Burroughs."
The handful of people who joined Tom in his efforts attended county council and city council meetings. They phoned and e-mailed each other about their Take Back May activities, but they've had only a couple of formally organized meetings. They talked early on about having an official committee with regular meetings, but they decided it was too cumbersome.
Their efforts and the mind-set of city council members were enough to make changes. Regulations were passed designed to make motorcyclists wear helmets, not congregate in public areas, and not have overly loud motorcycles. Vendor permits during the rally were rescinded, and the town officially and publicly proclaimed that all motorcycle rallies within the Myrtle Beach city limits were over. For good.
Slow Build-up
Tom says he remembers when the Harley rally consisted of a couple hundred motorcyclists meeting at The Pad in the Ocean Drive section of North Myrtle Beach. As time went on the rally grew, and finally expanded so much it spilled down into Myrtle Beach. For the past 10 years, Tom says, the Harley rally held in the first half of May, and the Memorial Day weekend bike rally became too rowdy and raucous to bear.
He has been infuriated by lewd behavior that is put on public display, such females riding motorcycles dressed in thong bikinis, females engaging in displays of sexual simulation in public, and organized biker games such as "bobbing for dildos."
"All that crap I think makes [our community] look terrible," he said. "I don't care what they do inside closed doors, but when it is in public and when it is where schoolchildren can see it on the street, and when they advertise it...I think it makes us look bad to potential...tourists."
Dangerous Streets
In addition to the noise and rowdiness of the rallies, Tom says the amount of crime, traffic injuries and traffic deaths during May was becoming out of control. He has a folder of statistical data obtained from city and county police departments showing how from 2006 thru 2008 an average of seven cyclists die in Horry County traffic accidents during the fourteen days of the rallies and an average of five die in the City of Myrtle Beach. This represents half the traffic fatalities in the city for the entire year. The number of traffic injuries averages around 200, and the incidence of felony crime rises 375 percent compared to the rest of the year.
This year, no cyclists were killed in the city of Myrtle Beach where the helmet law was adopted, he said. Three people died in the county during the two rallies. Not one of those killed were wearing a helmet. He thinks the adoption of the helmet law clearly saved lives.
Hit in the Pocketbook
As for lost revenue experienced by Myrtle Beach business owners and their employees because not as many bikers visited this year, Tom says while he feels compassion for anyone suffering from a loss of income, he says this year was the perfect time to end the rallies.
"I don't want anybody hurt financially," he said. "I want to see the Mom and Pops make money. I think [banishing the rallies] will hurt in the short term, but in the long run it will be better...I knew going into this there would be a transitional period, and that it would adversely affect some peoples' businesses for that 10-day period in May. But I think the claims of losses are overstated for that 10-day period. I think in the long run we'll all be better off if we can rid ourselves of this reputation. I suspect the bike rally numbers would have been down no matter what happened this year, because of the economy. Rally proponents say it was a bad time to [enact anti-biker regulations], but I say it was a great time to do it because numbers would have been down anyway. I don't want to see anybody suffer."
Myrtle Beach City Council members have a duty to "do what they can to bring in other events to replace that revenue," Tom said, adding that he thinks claims that there is no way to replace that income are "ludicrous." His friend John Springs, who runs Caledonia Golf and Fish Club and True Blue golf club, says he had the best May numbers in seven years. He speculates that hotels running better package deals because of a lack of bikers to fill rooms may have been responsible.
Some of Tom's friends were delighted to have less business, such as an orthopedic surgeon who normally gets only a few hours' sleep over the motorcycle weeks.
A group of people who were angry over the city's efforts to end motorcycle rallies started a campaign called "Not a Dime in '09," where they vowed to not spend any money within Myrtle Beach city limits. Tom said he was not disappointed when those people stayed away for the rallies.
He was also not disappointed in how city officials handled ending the rallies.
"I think City Council did exactly what they should have done," he said. "I was amazed at how bold they were and how effective their actions were so far. But I do think they need to do something to help bring events to replace the rallies, to help the Mom and Pop hotels, businesses at Broadway at the Beach. Even though I don't think a 10-day period in May is going to make or break them."
Letting Voters Decide
Tom says efforts to unseat Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes and city council members by groups opposed to Take Back May, such as HELP (Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians), and BOOST (Business Owners Organized to Save Tourism), are part of the democratic process.
"If they are successful, there will be amendments to the laws," he said. "But I don't think they'll be successful. I think the majority of people who live here don't want the rallies, don't want their lives disrupted, don't want crime and injuries and deaths. They don't want it any more."
Take Back May is hosting a thank-you rally from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Myrtle Beach Train Depot to thank the mayor and city council members for their efforts to end the May bike rallies. Tricia Cunningham, spokeswoman for HELP, said that members of HELP, ABATE and BOOST are going to attend the rally to show quiet opposition to Take Back May.
Tom said the Wednesday event is a political rally to thank city officials, and he thinks for others to disrupt it would be in poor taste.
"Myrtle Beach has been like a teenager for a long time, and this is a growing pain," he said. "It's part of cleaning our act up...My goal is to do away with the rallies. I prefer they go away from all of the Grand Strand, but it's not up to me. I'm just trying to make the community a better place to live."