MYRTLE BEACH — Myrtle Beach Notebook

The Myrtle Beach City Council last week passed its ordinance that changes restrictions on where people and businesses can solicit the public, but decided against requiring a permit to do so.

The updated ordinance also made it unlawful for panhandlers and people asking for money in exchange for a pamphlet or flier to solicit in parks, limiting them to streets and sidewalks during daylight hours.

As originally proposed, the ordinance would have required anyone from picketers to panhandlers who wanted to solicit in the city to obtain a free permit by presenting photo identification and passing a warrant check.

In his recommendation, City Manager Tom Leath said the council should drop the permitting portion of the ordinance.

“The permitting requirement will bring some enforcement issues to the table, as most will not secure a permit. Also, permitting in and of itself will not materially help in enforcement, will just add one more issue to the encounter and will probably be more trouble than it is worth,” he wrote in the final ordinance.

During the Aug. 14 meeting, Mayor John Rhodes said enforcement could be an issue.

“Our police force is so busy taking care of everything else except solicitation,” he said. “It’s starting to wind down and once [the ordinance is] passed, we should see our police force do more enforcement.”

Council Wayne Gray said in the Aug. 14 meeting that the ordinance was proposed as a way to relax some of the laws in the city –specifically from 13th Avenue South to 21st Avenue North, east of Kings Highway, which was a solicitation-free zone.

The ordinance does not allow any solicitation on the beach, boardwalk or at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, but some forms of solicitation could be allowed on streets, sidewalks and in parks.

Sept. 11 dedication at Broadway at the Beach

Golf Holiday and the city of Myrtle Beach will host a dedication at 7 p.m. Tuesday for a Sept. 11 memorial at Broadway at the Beach.

The city received a steel beam from the north tower of the Wold Trade Center as a “thank you” from New York City firefighters for the hospitality they said they received in Myrtle Beach in the months following the terrorist attacks, according to a press release.

The beam is featured in the memorial on 29th Avenue North, adjacent to the Cub Scouts’ Unity Memorial.

Contact MAYA T. PRABHU at 444-1722.