Horry County to explore extending special event permit for fair, other events

Horry County officials will look into what can be done to allow for a fair next year by amending its special event permit laws, while maintaining restrictions on vendors for other special events, such as biker rallies.

Currently, the county does not allow special events to last longer than seven days, and fair organizer Steve Zacharias said the fair would need 10 days for set up and tear down reasons.

“What we found with the amusement company... they need two Saturdays,” Zacharias said at the council’s public safety meeting Monday. “They stay set up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because you’re not going to set up a Ferris wheel, tear that thing back down just to put it back up. They need to have two weekends with families coming out, especially in that April time frame.”

Zacharias is general manager at Myrtle Beach Speedway where the fair is scheduled to happen in April 2016.

Councilman Marion Foxworth said changing the county’s rule on special permitting length could have a positive rippled effect.

“We should consider this for the sake of not only Steve and the Speedway, but other venues around the county - the Loris Fairgrounds and the winery on Highway 90 have talked about a Christian music concert at a local park,” Foxworth said. “All of those would need a longer than seven day permit, which includes the set-up time.”

Councilman Al Allen, chairman of the public safety committee, asked County Administrator Chris Eldridge, emergency management director Randy Webster, county attorney Arrigo Carroti, the police chief and fire chief to figure out a way to extend the special permit days and not negatively impact businesses, which also was important to Foxworth.

“It would seem that depending on the application... I understand we don’t want the bike vendors setting up until that day, selling T-shirts and sunglasses,” Foxworth said. “But the guy who owns the property [where they are] setting up the tent where the T-shirt vendor is going to be, he needs the opportunity to set that up in the same fashion without worrying about wind or heavy rain coming down on somebody. I think we’re smart enough to figure out a way to do that and not hurt every business in town and not upset everybody.”

In March, Zacharias announced the fair would be making a return for the first time since 2009. However, one week later, Zacharias said the event would not happen until 2016 to allow more planning time. Most of the reason for the delay was that the county requires there to be a 45-day period between applying for the permit and the actual event, which didn’t leave enough time for the fair to be permitted for 2015. With ample time before next year’s planned event, the goal now is to get the county to go along with extending the permit length from seven days to 10.

Zacharias said the initial response on social media was overwhelming, and helped organizers realize what may be in store for them when the fair becomes a reality.

“We talked to a lot of the community and we’re going to have to do a lot more planning for parking,” Zacharias said. “We have 48 acres, but when we saw the response, we said, ‘Aw, man, this is a little bit bigger than we probably anticipated.’”

This story was originally published May 11, 2015 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Horry County to explore extending special event permit for fair, other events."