Horry County may have to scrap sex offender business license bill due to legal issues
When Adam Wiseman showed up at an Horry County Council meeting six months ago, he told a surprising story.
Wiseman owns the Inlet Seafood Market near Murrells Inlet and was approached by a man who wanted to park his ice cream truck on Wiseman’s property.
Wiseman agreed, and allowed the man to use his commercial kitchen as well for a small monthly fee.
It was only later, though, Wiseman said, that he learned the man was a convicted sex offender — Robert Taylor, a former pastor who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but later had his life sentence throw out. He’s been free since 2019, and currently lives in Conway.
Wiseman called the Williamsburg solicitor, who had prosecuted Taylor.
“I asked him, ‘What’s the deal? Why’s he have an ice cream truck?’”
Wiseman cut ties with the man and asked Horry County Council to step in: They shouldn’t allow convicted sex offenders to obtain county business licenses, he said.
Council members quickly got to work and came up with a proposed ordinance in early March. That ordinance would have barred sex offenders from receiving county business licenses if they ran a “child-oriented business” like an arcade, a mini-golf course or an ice cream truck.
It covered people convicted of prostitution, too.
The ordinance would also make it illegal for child-oriented businesses to employ convicted sex offenders. It would have been up to the county police and the business license office to enforce the ordinance.
Horry County leaders, though, have realized there are legal issues with that ordinance that have sent them back to the drawing board. State law already covers what convicted sex offenders can do, and where they can work.
That could mean county leaders have to scrap the ordinance altogether, though some council members want to work to amend it instead.
The ordinance won an initial approval and was set for debate at the next council meeting.
“The state already does this and they do it pretty strict,” said County Treasurer Angie Jones, who oversees the business license department. “There’s no need for the county to step in and interfere with the state.”
Indeed, the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services restricts sex offenders from entering, loitering near or working in “any area or event frequented by people under the age of 18.” Those include “schools, day care centers, playgrounds, arcades, public swimming pools (and) beaches, shopping malls, theaters, (and) festivals.”
Additionally, lawmakers this term must work to amend state law that withholds parole from sex offenders after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Wiseman, in an interview, said he’s been talking with state lawmakers, too, to place more restrictions on sex offenders in the event that Horry County’s ordinance isn’t tenable.
“The bottom line is there needs to be more people vocal about this,” he said. “There needs to be more of a movement to protect our children.”
SC attorney general could weigh in
Jones, along with 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, said they’ve asked South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson to weigh in on Horry County’s proposed ordinance.
A legal opinion from the AG’s office could shed light on what Horry County is allowed to legislate, and what the state already covers.
Richardson said he requested the opinion as a favor to Jones.
“I did that as a favor to our treasurer because she’ll be responsible for maintaining business licenses,” Richardson said Thursday. “Her big thing was, ‘I don’t want to be sued over this.’”
Robert Kittle, a spokesperson for Wilson, said the office hadn’t received Richardson’s request but that it frequently fields such asks for legal opinions. Kittle said such opinions take anywhere from “a few days to a few weeks” for the AG’s office to issue.
Enforcement issues
At a meeting among Horry County officials on Wednesday, Jones and others who attended said they discussed with county police how difficult it would be to enforce the ordinance if the county council passes it.
According to council member Johnny Vaught, county police said the ordinance would affect 740 businesses in the county and that officers hadn’t received any complaints about sex offenders in child-oriented businesses in recent years.
“I don’t feel like we need to be enforcing that and (state law) has a lot stronger application than whatever we can write,” Vaught said. “We’d be putting the onus on our businesses as well as our police to go out and check that.”
Treasurer Jones noted that if the council passes the ordinance, both her office and county police would need additional staff to enforce it. The county passed tax increases last year to hire additional police officers for existing deficits.
Jones also pointed out that even if Horry County made it illegal for sex offenders to obtain certain business licenses, they could apply for a license in one the cities that don’t have that rule.
She said that if state law didn’t cover sex offenders so strictly then Horry County would “definitely” need and ordinance to restrict them from running or working at child-oriented businesses. But since the state covers that issue, and since police have received no complaints, she said, “it’s not a problem right now.”
What happens now?
Council member Harold Worley, who helped push the ordinance through the council’s administration committee earlier this month, said he would like to amend the ordinance and keep some version of it in place.
“I think there’s ways that we can amend it and keep it in place but having said that I want to make sure that we’re not doing something illegal,” he said.
He said he would send it back to the administration committee for further debate.
Vaught noted the ordinance carries political implications for council members and that the council could find a way to rewrite the ordinance to make it more enforceable.
“It’s a political op(portunity) because nobody could vote against not protecting children. The main thing is that we want to make sure the children are protected, and this parole document covers that,” he said.
“If there’s not a problem out there, we don’t need to write an ordinance.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect the number of businesses affected by the proposed ordinance.
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 2:05 PM.
