Horry County Council really doesn’t need to spend more time talking about face masks

Just as most area folks — along with our many visitors — seem to be adhering to local mandates to use face coverings, Horry County Council may start to debate its already approved extension.

Some university-age students obviously are among the exceptions to following the law on facial covering during the COVID-19 pandemic, although Coastal Carolina University has not experienced the problems that have surfaced on many other campuses across the nation.

And we’re not suggesting that everybody is okey-dokey with the mere idea of wearing the sometimes pesky masks.

It’s beyond debate, however, that many more people began to put on masks in grocery stores and other public establishments once local governments mandated the wearing of face coverings.

The Horry County Council — which serves as local government in unincorporated area such as Carolina Forest, Little River and Socastee — first approved a mandate shortly after similar steps were taken by the city councils of Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach.

As the municipal mandates expired they were extended, and the County Council followed suit on Sept. 1 by means of a consent agenda — a procedural device by which legislative bodies take care of noncontroversial matters.

Allen alleges ‘tyranny’

However, Councilman Al Allen did not feel extending that the mask mandate was routine. In fact, during the Sept. 1 meeting Allen said it was “tyranny” to put such a momentous matter on the consent agenda.

He attempted to remove the mask mandate from the consent agenda so members could discuss it; that attempt failed on a 7 to 5 vote.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The morning after the Sept. 1 vote Chairman Johnny Gardner announced on Facebook that for the purpose of allowing debate, he would place an item on the Sept. 15 agenda calling for the face mask mandate to be removed — which would also allow for another vote on the mandate extension.

“This is not about whether the face mask resolution should have passed,” Gardner wrote in his post. “This is about whether council should have been allowed to debate the issue.”

Allen was pleased.

“Open discussion and debate is what allows ‘full transparency’ in our government structure for the people,” Allen declared.

Well, yes.

Transparency in all levels of government is vital.

So while Gardner properly placed the mask extension (through the end of October) on the consent agenda for Sept. 1, it’s difficult to be critical of him for accommodating Allen’s request for more discussion.

But to what end?

It’s not ‘tyranny’

Allen represents western Horry County, which is largely agricultural and at opposite ends of The Beach in more ways than just geographical.

In praising Gardner’s Facebook note, Allen said the mask mandate is “something we as a council need to look at more seriously instead of rubber stamping it.”

But surely “tyranny” was not the word Allen should have used in describing the Sept. 1 consent agenda vote; Gardner, who is elected countywide, is hardly an absolute ruler.

Discussion should be brief

At the Sept. 1 meeting four other council members supported Allen’s attempt to make the face mask extension a separate item. We hope, however, that those votes were intended merely to support the idea of having a full discussion.

The reality is that it makes no sense for public places such as restaurants, service businesses and retail stores in unincorporated areas to be regulated any differently than they are in municipalities.

The coronavirus has claimed 180 lives in Horry County and 2,800 in South Carolina — and it is beyond debate that some lives could have been spared if people had worn face masks earlier in the pandemic.

That’s why any discussion that the Horry County Council members have about face masks — whether it’s about wearing them or extending the county’s mandate on them — should be a brief one.