Bar closing times should consider Myrtle Beach hospitality workers’ schedules

Members of the Horry County Council likely will hear some objections on Tuesday about a proposed ordinance setting a 2 a.m. closing time for drinking establishments in unincorporated areas. Since Horry County started the process on the ordinance, the city of Myrtle Beach is also looking into a 2 a.m. closing.

The Horry County ordinance went through the public safety committee and first reading by County Council with no public comment. On Tuesday evening, the ordinance will be up for second reading, following a public hearing, according to public information officer Lisa Bourcier. If the ordinance passes Tuesday, a third vote is required before the ordinance would take effect July 12.

Bar owners such as Jason Klocker are not happy with the ordinance as written. Klocker’s Tavern does a majority of its business from midnight to 4 a.m. Klocker’s establishment, a quarter of a mile outside the Myrtle Beach city limits, is one of the places hospitality industry workers go for their “happy hour” after work shifts at a variety of restaurants.

“When you go in these places, customers are still in their [wait staff] uniforms,” says Rick O’Neill, an attorney for Klocker and other owners. O’Neill says the ordinance is “a blanket solution” that will adversely affect places that really aren’t part of the problem the ordinance purports to address. The intent is to reduce early morning crime.

Previously, Horry County Councilman Johnny Vaught told The Sun News: “There’s a spike that happens right around 2 a.m. and after and it’s almost all public intoxication ... people getting out in parking lots, fighting and carrying on, and that’s when we get so many arrests for public intoxication.”

The ordinance states that prolonged consumption of alcoholic beverages “often directly leads to volatile and dangerous situations” which is a legitimate public safety concern for law enforcement officers and residents. Klocker and O’Neill say a good compromise would be to amend the proposed ordinance to allow later closing with conditions for security and so forth, such as Myrtle Beach has in place.

“We’re not a problem,” Klocker says. “My clientele are pretty much all service industry people” from midnight to closing.

Business is slower from his 6 p.m. opening until around midnight.

“Horry County’s problems are out in the county,” he says, and county government could address problem establishments by means other than requiring all drinking establishments to close at 2 a.m. One solution is to declare problem places a public nuisance and close them. A less harsh approach is to make the county ordinance similar to that in the city of Myrtle Beach, where the city manager was instructed by the council to talk to owners of late night bars.

The city ordinance also would prohibit locking or blocking front doors while patrons are present. State law allows the sale of beer and wine after 2 a.m., meaning no sale of hard liquor (gin, rum, vodka, whiskey). The law also sets a 2 a.m. closing on Saturdays and Sundays, with no closing time set for Mondays through Fridays.

The county and city councils properly are considering solutions to public safety problems fueled by over-indulgence of alcoholic beverages. Both councils, though, should consider the many hospitality workers and the businesses serving them without extraordinary problems.

This story was originally published June 4, 2016 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Bar closing times should consider Myrtle Beach hospitality workers’ schedules."