How Surfside Beach Town Council acted in response to hospitality fee lawsuit settlement
Surfside Beach Town Council agreed to approve the new settlement agreement in the hospitality fee lawsuit involving Myrtle Beach and Horry County.
At a council meeting on Tuesday, the board voted unanimously on the matter. There was no discussion.
Surfside Beach’s vote brings the settlement one step closer to full approval, which would allow local municipalities to collect revenue from a 1.5% hospitality fee that tourists and other customers pay on hotel stays, admission tickets and food sales. That revenue would be a financial shot in the arm for Horry County municipalities, some of which have faced budget issues due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Myrtle Beach sued Horry County in 2019 over its collection of a 1.5% hospitality fee, which the city said was done illegally after 2017. The county had collected the hospitality fee since 1997 to pay for roads and other transportation infrastructure as part of its original RIDE program, which was intended to last for 20 years. But in 2016, the county voted to extend it for another six years. Myrtle Beach said in the suit the county should have consulted with city officials before pursuing the extension of the fee.
Surfside Beach and other local governments, including North Myrtle Beach and Conway, are parties to the suit. Therefore, they must approve the settlement before details of the settlement are released, according to local council members.
Horry County Council and Myrtle Beach City Council both held special meetings Friday and approved the agreement. unanimously. Conway City Council was the first to approve the settlement agreement on Feb. 1.
One piece of the compromise appears to be over how to divvy up the $19 million collected from the hospitality fee between 2017 and June 2019 when a judge ordered the county to stop collecting it due to the lawsuit. Horry County Council member Johnny Vaught confirmed some of the $19 million will go towards the South Carolina Bar Foundation, but wouldn’t say how much.
“It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to go but we’re going to drive on from where we are,” he said Friday. “I think it’s a really good thing that we finally got it settled. I’d rather see the municipalities get all the money we collected but that’s not how it worked out.”
Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune said Friday that the agreement is a good solution for everyone involved.
“I applaud the county for joining us at the table to reach a settlement,” Bethune said in a statement to The Sun News. “I also thank the other municipalities for their patience during this process. As the class representative, the city takes that responsibility very seriously. We are all pleased to have come to this point.”
City councils in Conway, Atlantic Beach and Loris have approved the execution of the settlement. North Myrtle Beach City Council will vote on it during a special meeting on Wednesday.
This will be the second settlement agreed on by both parties. A state Supreme Court judge discarded the first one and told them to start over in December, saying the municipalities had to figure out all matters related to the fee before a settlement could be approved.