Myrtle Beach refunds helmet fines to bikers

The checks are in the mail.

Myrtle Beach has sent refunds to those who paid fines when they received tickets for not wearing motorcycle helmets, and a second set of checks went out this week for interest on the fines.

The city paid $13,964 in fine refunds for 141 tickets issued while the helmet law was in effect from February 2009 to this summer, when the state Supreme Court declared the law invalid.

City spokesman Mark Kruea said the city also sent an additional $869 in interest, figured at 7.25 percent and depending on how long ago the city collected the fines.

"The interest checks were between 50 cents and $10.50," he said.

Including mailing the checks, the city spent nearly $16,000 issuing the refunds and interest payments.

Councilman Randal Wallace, who was the only council member to vote against the helmet law, said he is glad the city can move forward now.

"It was just one tool in the whole basket of stuff we were trying to do about the rallies," he said. "I didn't agree with it, but on the big scale, nothing has changed about how the city is going to deal with these events. We still intend to keep control of the city in the month of May."

He said he figured the city would have written more tickets than just 141.

"I would encourage people to wear helmets. We didn't have a single fatality in city limits while the law was in place," Wallace said. "But I don't think it's government's place to tell them they have to."

The state's high court ruling came in response to two lawsuits heard in February alleging that the city had superseded state law by implementing a local helmet law and that the helmet law was unconstitutional.

The court ruled that the state had already completely answered the question of who must wear helmets - riders younger than 21 - and that the city's law was not in keeping with the state's Uniform Traffic Act.

Also, the court said, the city had already invalidated the law itself when it repealed the administrative hearing court created to take care of the tickets issued for helmet law violations, which were then considered administrative infractions.

City leaders have said they are not worried about losing the bike helmet law, because the city has other tools to meet its goal of gaining control over the May motorcycle rallies that, at their peak, drew an estimated 500,000 people to the area.

In 2008, the city passed a package of 14 new laws and amendments, including the helmet law, designed to push the Harley-Davidson Spring Cruisin' the Coast rally and Atlantic Beach Bikefest outside Myrtle Beach city limits. The city had faced years of complaints from locals and non-biker visitors about noise, excess garbage, reckless driving and lewd behavior.

Three other city ordinances passed as part of that package were also ruled invalid by the Supreme Court. Those dealt with parties in public parking lots, a juvenile curfew and convenience-store security. The city has since made violating those ordinances a misdemeanor instead of an infraction, which the court said would make them valid.

Kruea said the city is going to issue refunds for any tickets given under those three ordinances before their violations became misdemeanors, too. He did not know how many tickets had been issued or how much the refunds would be, but said he would have numbers later this week.

He said those refunds will be "substantially less" than what the city spent issuing helmet-ticket refunds.