Shades on the shore may be in jeopardy for Horry County

The Horry County Council Public Safety Committee postponed discussion of cracking down on beach canopies until the August 23 committee meeting.

As the debate over the canopies increases, some who don't want to lose their shorefront shades say there's something more dangerous on Grand Strand sands - beach umbrellas.

"I was hit in the head with one the other day," said Shane Hubbard of Conway, who has owned a beach tent for the past five years. "They can't be anchored deep enough. The other day, one blew into a chair a woman had been sitting in and staked the chair to the sand. If she had been sitting there, she would have been seriously injured. I've never seen a beach tent do that."

The county committee is scheduled to take up the debate over banning tents at its meeting today, and Hubbard said he plans to be there to present his view.

Horry County Public Safety Department officials say the tents present a different danger: They obstruct lifeguards' and parents' views of the water, and can block emergency vehicles, too.

Paul Whitten, assistant county administrator for public safety, said in a report in The Sun News last month that a lifeguard was assaulted earlier this year when he asked a beachgoer to move a tent from his line of sight. He said in another case a beach truck attending to a medical call was closed in by tents during the time he was dealing with patients, and then had trouble convincing the beachgoers to move the tents so he could leave the beach.

"They don't just set up one of these tents; families will set up four or five right next to each other," Whitten said. "It's getting to be an issue. I stood out there and looked early in the morning, and it was already getting filled up and travel lanes were restricted. I don't know what else to do" aside from banning the tents, which have grown in popularity.

County staff members were asked to present different options for regulating and possibly banning the tents from unincorporated county beaches.

"It's too late to do anything for this year. We recognize the need to do something about it for next year, though," said Horry County Councilman Bob Grabowski, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

"I don't know specifically what we'll do, but we asked staff to look at all the options. Some of the options may include restricting them from emergency lanes where we may be able to flag and post the areas where they aren't supposed to set up. Banning them would be an option, but I personally don't support that."

Grabowski said part of the county's enforcement plan for whatever action they take will likely include a better information campaign to the hotels.

"We need to do a better job of communicating with hotels and motels and getting them to let guests know what not to do and getting them to post signs to let people know whatever it is we decide," he said. "People are already leaving [canopies] there over night, which we've had rules on the books about for awhile. It's a problem because the rake comes by ... and sometimes they don't see it, or if they do, they have to continuously get off the rake and go move it over."

North Myrtle Beach City Council members last week cast the first of two votes regarding tents on their beach - the majority of the council voted to ban the tents.

But Surfside Beach Mayor Allen Deaton said he thinks that's a mistake.

"I think they should regulate them," he said. "They provide a pretty good place for families, especially those with children or older people."

He said his town has regulations in place - no tents or umbrellas in front of the lifeguard stands - and has had no problems.

Myrtle Beach City Manager Tom Leath said the same rule is in place inside the city, and while beaches are busy and crowded, there have been no real problems with tents.

"That makes sense," said Doug Furlong of Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach's rules. Furlong is from Glasgow, Ky., and was on the beach in Garden City this weekend with his family, spread out under a blue tent.

His son, Brad, also from Glasgow, said if the county bans tents, he'll simply find a beach that doesn't.

"If an emergency vehicle needed to get down here, they wouldn't be able to do it very quickly anyway," he said. "We could have the tent moved by the time they got here if we had a little warning."

Hubbard said he and his wife own a house in Garden City and use the beach regularly. They have bought a new tent every season because the tent posts tend to rust because of the salt air and water. They never set their tent up the night before a beach visit because it would wash away, he said.

Hubbard said over the years, he has often seen county police officers let people know when they are blocking emergency routes.

He said he thinks emergency vehicles have plenty of access - every block or two - and shouldn't be driving up and down the beach in big trucks.

"They should be using four-wheelers," he said. "There are too many people out here for those big trucks."

Deaton said he worries more about the umbrellas than the tents, too.

"You know, on a breezy day, you just see them cartwheeling down the beach," he said. "I think those are more dangerous."