Surfside Beach committee discusses parking around town

Ron Meadows at the Village Cafe in Surfside Beach can’t take anymore.

He’s worried the town will install parking meters in the revamped downtown area, driving his customers out of town.

Meadows and his wife Darlene opened their restaurant on Surfside Drive a year and a half ago. Construction for the downtown redevelopment started just weeks after they set up shop. He was told the project would take two months, but it lasted half a year instead.

“It’s a rumor that’s got everybody on Surfside Drive all tore up,” Meadows said.

The couple’s concern is so great Meadows came to the first meeting of the town’s parking committee with a petition signed by the Surfside Drive business owners in his hands.

“I’m telling you it will put us out of business,” he said.

Parking around town has frustrated residents for years. At the last Council meeting on Jan. 24, leaders selected six volunteers to serve on the committee for 90 days before presenting their ideas on parking to the Council.

Committee Chairman Gene Maruca said one of their first goals will be to make the committee permanent. He said the parking issue has plagued the town for years without resolve, so Council couldn’t expect a committee to remedy everything in three months. The committee’s first suggestions don’t include paid parking downtown.

Maruca said the parking causes headaches for about 10 weeks during the summer when tourists arrive with more cars than the rental homes can accommodate. Then even more cars flood the town from neighborhoods just outside Surfside Beach like Caropines and Deerfield Plantation.

Among the issues are cars parked along the street on Ocean Boulevard instead of inside the metered parking lots. Committee member Harry Kohlman said it’s as much a safety issue as it is an aesthetic one.

For the Meadows, all the construction during the downtown redevelopment meant a tough season.

“We took all we can take this last year,” he said. “We were starving to death anyway, then we were starving to death all spring because of what needed to be done. I can’t take anymore. I’ve spent almost $100,000 in this town in the last year just trying to keep my business open and something like that would be the final nail in my coffin.”

Brayer Suratt has been at the Charleston Cafe, also on Surfside Drive, since the spring of 2009, though she said the restaurant dates back to the 1980s. She too is concerned parking meters would damage her business.

“Surfside’s got a really dynamic group of businesses,” she said. “It would be unfortunate to do that to less than one block when there are so many other [dining] options almost in walking distance or in short driving distances where they wouldn’t have to pay to park. I’m afraid it would do us in.”

Maruca agreed that meters shouldn’t be on Surfside Drive, but he thought they would fit in the parking lot behind the Sundown Sports Pub.

“This is a private parking lot paid by the taxpayers,” he said. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t put meters in there to generate some of the cost to reimburse the tax payers and the money can go somewhere else.”

But, committee member Todd Friedman said that would only clear cars from the lot and move them onto the streets. He said the businesses on Surfside Drive shouldn’t be treated the same as those at the Surfside Beach Pier.

“I think there’s a value for that big blue thing over there,” he said referring to the Atlantic Ocean. “You want to be at the beach, you pay to be at the beach. You want to be five blocks from the beach you don’t have to pay for that because whether you’re [at Surfside Drive] or Socastee, it doesn’t matter. The ocean’s not in play anymore. The beach isn’t in play anymore.”

John Ard, another committee member and town Council candidate, said he would never support parking meters on Surfside Drive.

“You got another way to look at it too,” he said. “If you go to the cleaner to drop off your clothes are you going to put money in that meter? And when you go back to pick up your clothes are you going to put money in that meter?”

The committee wants to present suggestions as they are decided by the group, rather than at the end of their term so Council doesn’t have too many ideas to look at in one sitting.

The committee’s first idea is to shorten the paid parking season. Currently, it runs from March 1 to October 31. Maruca said the tourists are long gone by the time Halloween rolls around, so there’s no point to have meters running. The committee decided the season should run from March 1 to Sept. 10.

The committee also agreed that parking hours should change to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking meters are now active in season from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“You can get a breakfast without paying and you can go to dinner without paying,” Kohlman said. “A new business is going in there [at the pier]. We want them to succeed without the extra burden of people having to pay to go in to eat.”

The committee’s two suggestions will be presented to the Council at an upcoming meeting. Town leaders are not required to approve any ideas from the committee.

The parking committee has already scheduled their second meeting for Tuesday Feb. 7 at 2 p.m. They will meet inside council chambers.