Letter | A sure-fired way to end Bikefest in Myrtle Beach: Regulate the heck out of it

A sure-fired way to end Bikefest in Myrtle Beach

The answer to the Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest? Regulate it out of town. The reason Bikefest is here is because irresponsible elected officials in the Grand Strand allowed them to be here.

Bikefest has grown into one big, lawless problem. They’re not welcomed. They need to just go away. And the best way to do that is to regulate them out of town, make life so excruciatingly uncomfortable that they simply go someplace else.

I applaud the city of Myrtle Beach for the plan they have put in place: a larger and more visible police presence; one lane and one direction on Ocean Boulevard; a nighttime circuit that should be plenty inconvenient.

All great ideas. Here are a few more:

Require Atlantic Beach to register each bike for a hefty fee that they must share with neighboring jurisdictions. Require all registered bikes to have windshield stickers in order to gain access to Ocean Boulevard. Require Atlantic Beach to share the registration list with neighboring jurisdictions. Require local hotels to police their own patrons and slap them with a fine each time the police has to respond to their locations. Put a curfew on foot traffic from 10pm to 6am.

The Grand Strand should be welcoming to anyone and any group that can abide by our laws. The Bikefest crowd has proven year after year they can’t be trusted to behave like responsible adults. They are law breakers and troublemakers. Let’s make this the last year we see them here.

This story was originally published April 20, 2015 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Letter | A sure-fired way to end Bikefest in Myrtle Beach: Regulate the heck out of it."