Horry County Council to discuss ending vendor permits for May

Horry County Council members say they will discuss the possibility of doing away with all vendor permits in May after concerns were raised at Tuesday’s meeting about the spring bike rally.

There has been confusion the last few days over the dates for this year’s biker event.

The county schedule said it’s set to happen May 14-20. However, on Friday, the local Harley-Davidson dealer announced on its web site that the event will run from May 18-28.

Resident Tom Givens spoke on behalf of the Long Bay Estates homeowners association, which is located close to the motorcyle dealership in the south side of the county.

Givens requested that no changes be made to the bike week schedule and that no vendor permits be issued for dates that aren’t listed on the county web site. He added that the activity makes it very difficult on the residents who live in the area.

Councilman Gary Loftus recommended council members have a discussion at their next meeting about possibly doing away with all vendor permits in the month of May.

“They just don’t seem to want to play by whatever rules we set,” Loftus said.

Chairman Tom Rice assured Givens that council would look into his concerns.

Lisa Bourcier, Horry County spokeswoman, said the issue is on the agenda as a discussion item for the Feb. 7 County Council meeting.

In other business at Tuesday’s very brief council meeting, the second time turned out to be the charm for AvCraft Technical Services after the council once again approved $100,000 in incentives for the company.

There was no discussion prior to the 8-3 vote, which saw council members Marion Foxworth, Jody Prince and Carl Schwartzkopf cast “nay” votes.

Council members agreed during the Jan. 17, Committee of the Whole meeting to put the incentive package to aircraft maintenance firm AvCraft back on the agenda.

The cash incentive came under fire at the Jan. 10 County Council meeting from some council members who said they were concerned about AvCraft’s history, under previous ownership, of failing to live up to job promises and recent layoffs at the company.

The council voted on Dec. 13 to approve $100,000 in incentives for AvCraft only because the deal didn’t meet minimum requirements for the incentives. However, most council members said they did not realize AvCraft – which had been referred to only by a code name – was the company getting the money until after they had voted to approve the project.

They voted on Jan. 10 to reconsider the incentives approval – citing AvCraft’s layoffs, past financial problems and failure to meet previous incentives goals.