MB superblock moratorium must maintain transparency
The city of Myrtle Beach moratorium on any more drinking establishments in the downtown Superblock area seems to pit property rights of business owners against the city’s desirable goal of cleaning up crime in the 6-acre area also known as Five Points – Ninth Avenue North, Broadway, U.S. 501 and Main Street. In their pushback, owners clearly express resentment and suspicion of the moratorium.
As the City Council voted its final approval, also modifying the moratorium to allow bar and night club owners to sell their businesses during the next 14 months, City Manager John Pedersen outlined solid reasons for the city’s action. Three employees of one bar were arrested while on their way to work. “All three of them had drugs ... two of them had weapons. One of them had two weapons.” In following up later that same evening, “Most of the establishments checked out. We did find two establishments that had violations of the state alcohol laws. So to me it really underscores the necessity of cleaning this area up.”
The moratorium on new licenses started in October and continues until Jan. 1, 2017, during which time the city planning commission is developing new zoning for the area, which includes the office of the Downtown Redevelopment Corp., several vacant storefronts, a few shops, an eatery, a video production firm, a law office – and seven liquor-serving establishments. The area is known to law enforcement for criminal activity – an image business owners say they are trying to improve. They certainly have a vested interest in doing so.
Crime may lead to headlines and news reports well beyond the environs of the area, hardly the image sought for any tourism-driven economy. Cleaning up the old Five Points or Superblock is an appropriate city goal, one that is difficut to fault – as long as building and business owners are treated fairly and with even-handed enforcement of state liquor laws and application of city zoning and other ordinances and overall transparency.
Some of the concerns voiced are understandable. Hector Melendez and the Pure Ultra Club, opened at 803 Main St. in August 2014, are a case in point. He renovated a former furniture store “that had been taken over by squatters,” he tells Emily Weaver of The Sun News. He held up plans to renovate the second floor “after learning of the moratorium and other city actions he said are aimed at driving down property values.” Several bar owners and employees in the Superblock maintain “they are being pushed out for new development.”
James Patrick Brody, representing the owner of the building at 803 Main, accuses the city of “trying to destroy small business” and wants the city to revisit its crime data for Superblock. He cited “a petition with more than a thousand signatures from downtown businesses against the moratorium and a study revealing more crimes at Broadway at the Beach than downtown.” Given the much larger area of Broadway at the Beach, “more crime” might be expected.
Bar and night club owners, no matter their location, have a special responsibility to follow all laws related to liquor, beer and wine as well as ensure that their employees obey other laws, including those related to weapons. It would serve their interests, as well as those of the area in general, to use the coming moratorium months to further clean up their acts. And the city should try to help business and property owners see the bigger picture.
This story was originally published December 14, 2015 at 11:01 AM with the headline "MB superblock moratorium must maintain transparency."