How Horry County could be financially overwhelmed by COVID-19 bike rally rescheduling
Horry County could face more motorcycle rallies than it can financially handle due to coronavirus rescheduling.
Both Atlantic Beach’s Bikefest and the Harley-Davidson Spring Rally were postponed out of coronavirus concerns. Typically Horry County has three major bike rallies in a fiscal year.
Atlantic Beach rescheduled its rally for Labor Day weekend, and many in the biker community have called for a July Harley-Davidson rally as a replacement for the canceled spring rally, but it’s unclear if those plans will come to fruition.
Horry County Council delayed voting on a resolution requesting the biking community to only have one Harley-Davidson rally in October to hear from the community.
County Attorney Arrigo Carotti said he spoke with the attorney for the Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson dealership south of Myrtle Beach and he was okay rescheduling just one bike rally in October. Other bike week organizers are still looking for a July rally.
Suck Bang Blow events coordinator Bill Barber, whose Murrells Inlet bar hosts biker events, said Tuesday night that the biker community hopes to continue with its plans for a bike rally from July 13-19 and will work with the county in an attempt to hold it.
“I’m sure we’ll be reaching out to [Horry County Assistant Administrator] Randy Webster in the next few days,” Barber said. “The county has worked with us very well. We really couldn’t do it without them.”
Webster said plans to hold a bike rally in July could lead to five rallies within the coming fiscal year that begins in July.
If a July rally is held, there will still be the Labor Day rally, the normally scheduled fall rally and then two spring rallies back at their normal times in 2021. While no official event permits have been filed to have a summer rally, Webster said there have been inquiries.
For typical bike rallies, local public safety organizations work overtime for the weekends, increasing expenses. Even if social distancing is relaxed, allowing for large gatherings this summer, having that many rallies could create a strain on the county’s public safety finance usually paid for by revenue from the accommodations tax on lodging, Webster said.
“That would be an astronomical strain on our budget,” Webster said. “That would be five rallies for one fiscal year with a-tax money we don’t have.”
Horry County Council Member Harold Worley said the county needs to wait to see how vendors in the county, public safety leaders and the biker community feel about the matter.
“Let’s find out what they want to do before we do anything on this resolution,” Worley said. “Those folks are going to be up in arms if we pass this resolution before they have a chance to speak.”
Barber said some organizers of the spring rally spoke to a few council members when they were planning to move the rally to July.
“The people we talked to with the county seemed on board, of course they all have to convene to discuss it and they didn’t have a budget in front of them,” Barber said. “I’m sure they’re hurting just like everybody else because they’re not making any money either.”
Barber questioned whether the money already budgeted for the rally in the spring could just be moved to July. “The tax revenue alone from bike week gives them the ability to move money to the budget,” he said.
Rally organizers don’t expect as many bikers in July as they would have attracted in May, in part because bikers have children home in the summer, some may not have the money for a trip because of the coronavirus’ impact, and the summer heat.
“We weren’t anticipating it to be quite as big, but we all need that shot in the arm,” Barber said. “Without bike week there are a lot of restaurants, biker bars, regular bars and everything else that need that extra income. I know we’re tight as a tick right now. We haven’t been open in a long time.”
Barber, who has rescheduled the Marshall Tucker Band to perform at SBB during the proposed rally in July, said he has been contacted in the past couple weeks by more than 100 bikers who were hoping to come to the July rally.
Council member Tyler Servant, representing the Surfside Beach area, said there isn’t a consensus in the South Strand vendor community nor the biker community on whether there should be an additional biker rally. He wants to have more time to see what the community wants.
Horry County Council Member Gary Loftus said given the coronavirus concerns, there doesn’t need to be a rally planned in July yet when it isn’t a guarantee it can actually happen.
“I don’t think we should encourage the July date. We will be just coming off this down time and we don’t need Harleys down here taking away from our summer visitors. Fall is great,” he said.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 7:02 PM.
