One of the best live bands of all time, The Clash, gave us their wildly popular song "Should I stay or should I go." Covered by thousands of bands, the lyrics must be ringing in the ears of hundreds of thousands of bikers in the last few weeks.
A slightly modified version could be the theme song of the 2009 Myrtle Beach Bike Weeks. This year, bikers nationwide are asking "Should I go or should I stay now?" when it comes to the annual pilgrimage to the South Carolina beach town. While the full back-story would make a great reality show, the Cliff's Notes version is that there will be bikers in South Carolina, but 2009+ will not be the same as years past.
photo courtesy of Suck Bang Blow
Like many beach communities, the "Grand Strand" has become populated with retires who are anti-social when it comes to everyone who doesn't go to dinner at 4 pm or have blue-hair. The anti-biker attitude made its way into the Myrtle Beach city government earlier this year. Deciding to give away more tax-dollars than they have common-sense, the council voted to enact new ordinances specifically designed to curb motorcycle use within the city limits including helmet and exhaust-noise laws, most of which seem to disregard South Carolina's state laws. Afterwards, the city and Chamber of Commerce announced "Myrtle Beach will no longer host motorcycle rallies." And thus the confusion begins because the city never "hosted" motorcycle rallies. There is no title sponsor, no true "official" organization behind any of the South Carolina rallies. For our internet savvy crowd, it would be like taking down Napster and expecting the end of all peer-2-peer (p2p) sharing of music and video files.
After the Myrtle Beach city council moves, many area biker businesses reacted with a "not-so-fast." Most messages where educational in nature, telling the bike events had never been hosted by Myrtle Beach and that the motorcycle crowd would always be welcomed in the area nearby, but outside the city limits. That included one of the perceived main organizers, the Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership.
A freedom ride was scheduled to show support for bikers, but disappointment with the new Myrtle Beach laws. When +/- 100 bikers braved the rainy weather to get $100 tickets in acts of social disobedience, it appeared that everyone understood that the shows would go on this year in the area outside of Myrtle Beach, probably with lesser crowds due to the confusion.
The media thought the story was over until the Carolina Harley-Davidson Dealer's Association this week announced that it was saying goodbye to Myrtle Beach, moving their event to New Bern, North Carolina. The publicity stunt caught the New Bern mayor off guard somewhat. He said that the historic city could only handle the less than 4,000 older bikers the association described. According to the Mayor, New Bern does not have the hotels or night clubs to accomodate hundreds of thousands of bikers over a three week period like has historically happened in the Myrtle Beach area.
Which brings us back to the original issue. The future of the biker rallies in the Myrtle Beach area is clear as mud. The events were not hosted by Myrtle Beach or the Carolina Harley-Davidson Dealer's Association (which does not include the Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson dealer in its membership list). The local bikers will welcome their brothers and sisters of the wind to the area, but most likely will encourage them to stay, ride, play and party with their tax dollars outside of the Myrtle Beach city limits. The area businesses like Suck Bang Blow will continue to welcome their motorcycle customers with open arms this year, but unlikely the same large numbers as in the past.
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