City Council - workshop

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Well, good morning everybody. Thank you for being here today. This is our August 11th regular City Council meeting. It begins with an hour-long workshop and then the regular meeting begins at 10 o'clock today. The agenda is fairly short. Whether the meeting is short remains to be seen. We have one item on the workshop agenda this morning, and that's Jason Green, to talk about a Booker T. Washington update. I asked to put Jason on the agenda today for a couple of reasons. One, I don't think we've really had an update from Jason since January of 25. Two, we're spending $1.5 million a year on the Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance and it would be nice to hear what they're doing and also for them to hear what our expectations are. And then as we discovered back in June, it's an annual decision by city council to continue funding the MBDA. So getting regular progress updates would be nice. And they talked back in the spring with residents of the Booker T. Washington neighborhood. They've got the feedback from that. And I thought it would be good to hear the feedback from the Booker T. Washington area sooner rather than later.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me this morning. So I'm going to give a community input report largely based on Booker T. Washington community input, largely focused on Carver Street and the input from that. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the revitalization program that we've created, largely to create community input, or at least collect community input as part of that. One of the things that we do know, we know that the residents know the block better than anybody knows. They live there, the business owners work there, they run their businesses there. So we really want to make sure that we're collecting information from the residents and business owners because they know what's going on on the street. They know it better than anybody. That input creates accountability for us collectively. We know that when they have input, then it's actionable. If it's actionable, it is something that we can track and make sure that we're making progress on that. And then thirdly, it builds trust. Trust is always a cornerstone of everything that we do. We want to make sure that we are presenting ourselves in ways that builds trust and also collecting information and making the residents and business owners part of the process is a key pillar for us to build trust with the community at large. How our program works, we have champion recruitment. We work with about five to seven individuals for every block. We're wrapping up our community and put on our third block right now. But the champion recruitment is very important to become our additional bullhorn to get information out to the community. They're trusted folks within the community itself that we work with. We conduct community input meetings. We generally do about five to seven community input meetings, varying times of the day and week, just so we can collect as much information as possible. We synthesize that data with the city. It's not the MBDA by itself. We bring the city in. We want to make sure we're talking with the departments directly about what they can and cannot do and what the timelines might be. And then we come up with a plan in terms of that implementation. Some of it may be many years from now before some of that happens, but the idea around it is we want to have a plan to work from just so we know if we're making progress or not. How our current status is right now, block one, that community input was complete. That was the area of Ocean Boulevard between 9th and 16th. What came out of that were a handful of sidewalk repairs, the lights on Ocean Boulevard, at least the string lights. And then the wayfinding system was a big part of that conversation. In block two, that was Carver Street. The key outcomes for that was Charlie's Place, the stage, made the CIP this year. That was a big win for the community. Heard that loud and clear from the community through those community inputs as a need. Looking at Santee Cooper Lighting, that was one of the bigger requests that we heard from Carver Street was the lighting itself. And really kind of a lack of understanding of how to report an outage, right? I think that we heard that loud and clear from talking with the community. So that was part of an educational piece that we worked with the community as we had those conversations. And then block three, which is Broadway Street between 501 and Third Avenue South. We just finished up our community input meetings yesterday. We are gonna run a survey for a couple more weeks to collect some additional information. So I don't have any information to post on that just yet, although I do have some aggregate information to share about what we've learned. With respect to Carver Street, this is more about what the community told us, which I think is important. We had 171 total responses from 60 people that attended our meetings. We had 10 input categories and had seven meetings held. One of the things we learned in the process as we were running this program is that we really needed to start with a listening session with the community at large, just really to hear the aggregate concerns. And then we got into the details through the individual community input meetings we had. That was a big learning point for us as we executed this program. This is kind of upside down, but the top three issues here are at the bottom. Cultural and historical identity came up as one of the key issues from Carver Street. They really want to emphasize, and we think that's a good part of the revitalization effort is to elevate the cultural and historical significance of the areas of downtown. And that was loud and clear in terms of the number three on the list. Public art, they want to use public art to emphasize the history and the culture on Carver Street. That was certainly loud and clear. Wayfinding is part of that generic package for us is why we categorize it that way. And then the core infrastructure were big issues that came up. Drainage, sidewalks, streets, lights, those are the big ticket items that we heard as part of that. These are just a synopsis of what the community told us. Certainly on the core side, lighting and electrical sidewalks throughout the neighborhoods, those were some of the issues that came up. We have specific details, I don't have those here today, but we have a fairly lengthy report of all the specific issues that were mentioned. Again, cultural and historical identity, event performance. One thing that I found interesting is that since the MID does not extend to Carver Street, there was a request to have the Goldcaps work in that area relative for cleaning and presence of safety that they provide. So just thought that that was an interesting note that came out of the conversation. They've certainly seen the work in the other parts of downtown. But since we don't serve that area with the gold caps, it came up in part of the conversations we had. Input that we've received that's an action. Again, I've mentioned the stage at Charlie's Place. That was a big win for the community moving forward. The lighting outages through the police department, which I think did some really great work in helping identify those, we were able to aggregate all that information and submit that to Santee Cooper. Not sure on the status just yet as in whether or not those lights are repaired, but I know that they've all been submitted. We did have a champion follow-up meeting to let the champions know what we heard from the community, which is always an important part to give feedback back as to what we heard so our champions can at least continue to inform the community as we go along. And then we feel like the input we have, especially in the aggregate from all the three blocks that we've done so far, is important for looking at future funding and how we would fund some of these projects. And then bus stop improvements, that was one that came up fairly emphatically from a handful of folks about accessibility to the bus stop from an ADA perspective, since it was very difficult for folks in wheelchairs or scooters to be able to get up to the bus stop itself. Thought I'd like to point that out. So we aggregate all the information together. This is kind of an idea. Certainly the top three here, again at the bottom, public art and wayfinding, that was fairly consistent. Streetscape enhancements came up in all three blocks fairly consistent. And then the core infrastructure issues, predominantly on Carver Street, but we certainly heard that in all the blocks so far. So there's certainly a theme that comes along here. I think part of the idea of looking at different blocks as we move along through downtown is to find the commonality, use that from an aggregate standpoint to be able to go after grants at the federal and state level to address some of those issues. But in addition to that, we want to make sure that we find the singular things on each block that we can address that continues to emphasize the culture and the history and elevate the entire experience of those areas as we go along. I'll stop right there if anyone has any questions.

Can you back up a couple of slides? Yeah. Back. Back. There we go. I guess the first question is, the stage is in the budget. Where is the stage in the process? When do we anticipate doing that? Does anybody know? I do not.

Let's follow up.

I don't know either. And then specifically, what about the sidewalks? I mean, I'm just curious, what's the issue with the sidewalks?

Sometimes there is a repair that needs to be done. That's kind of on a micro scale. That's what we hear mostly of. I wouldn't say that we're hearing like making massive changes to sidewalks, although road design did come up in a couple of the conversations we had with the residents in Carver Street. There was a some concerns about the kind of movement through Carver Street as it zigzags through. That was one of the concerns that came up fairly often as part of the conversations that we had.

Sandy Cooper is very quick about getting the lights repaired, so they probably are all fixed at this point, but we can drive through at night and just take a look ourselves, I think. Those seem like reasonably minor requests at the end of the day to maintain the sidewalks, to make sure that the lighting is adequate for the areas. Was lighting more of an issue in the Canal Nance area versus BTW?

We predominantly heard it about King Street. There were certainly other areas that were addressed, but King Street seemed to be the bigger issue from the conversations we had.

Were there areas where lighting needed to be added, not just

That did come up, but we don't have specifics as to where. I think there would have to be some of those areas to find out exactly where. That should be enhanced. But I don't have a definitive answer as to where. That may be in some of the notes that we can go through, find out specifics.

Anybody else?

One of your, on a couple slides forward, top 10 was connectivity. Talk to me, what are they talking about?

That's about connecting Carver Street to the greater part of downtown. We've heard that fairly emphatically from folks. Crossing Joe White is a barrier to some degree. I wouldn't say it's a complete barrier, but the idea around it is that when you look at reconnecting communities to kind of the work that's happening in downtown at the moment, reconnection is always an important part. It's the best practice to kind of invite the surrounding communities to come into the downtown that's being worked on. And I would suggest that that is the premise is trying to connect Carver Street back to the greater part of downtown. Good, thank you.

Jason, let me ask you, you know, talking about the lighting and I know Santee Cooper has been replacing some of the lights. So they are working on brightening things up. But one of the concerns that I heard from someone several times is not just the lighting, but the growth and stuff going on the wires and the Some of the trees and stuff where Santee Cooper or somebody, I think Fox, I believe me and you talked about that one time, or it might've been Brian, I'm sorry. But that's something, I don't know if we can get some help with Santee Cooper on addressing some of those issues in the neighborhood. It's a timely request. I got you.

I have a meeting with Santee Cooper tomorrow, 11 or 12 or something tomorrow morning. So this is on the agenda because Mr. Lauder has got the same issue. We're on Highway 15. Okay.

Okay.

The Garden of Hope project, I know that we attended a community meeting three months ago, probably, and there was great support for the Garden of Hope. Does anybody know where that project is at this point?

The only thing I'm aware of is that the Horry County Community Collaborative that's being shepherded by the United Way, and I think McLeod Health, if I'm not mistaken, is involved in the Garden of Hope. That's the extent of what I know at the moment.

I think they had funding for it even.

Yeah, there's a meeting coming up sometime soon.

Mayor, if I may, back to the Santee Cooper issue. Fox, are you going to discuss the storm mitigation trimming schedule?

We can.

With regard to trees, I would put that on there because that issue is the season, as they say. Better coming up before than after the fact.

Are there drainage-specific issues? And if there are, can you get those to Public Works, please?

We sure can.

I know that I've heard from folks who have drainage issues, but it's been a little while. It's been a year ago, probably. All right, anybody else? Back to where you are.

I just have two slides left to kind of get through here. So as part of the experience, which is one of the pillars of the Downtown Alliance, just to give you an idea very briefly of what we have coming up. So we're wrapping up hot summer nights. That's our partnership with the Oceanfront Merchants to activate Plyler Park. That has been a resounding success. We've only had a handful of weather days since we started, fortunately. We're seeing some really interesting activity down there in terms of entertainment. I think what we've heard from the oceanfront merchants that the entertainment is better since we've made some changes to those that are performing the entertainment. In the fall, we'll continue working with OMON Fright Nights at Plyler Park, but in addition, running Nance. We'll be doing four concerts for Nance and Nance this fall in Nance Plaza. Our emphasis as we shift out of the tourism season into September will be more locals first, trying to drive more local residents into downtown. The early numbers that we've seen, at least for Q2 so far, is that locals are coming in more, which I think is great. That's one of the big issues that we're trying to see. We're seeing more locals come in, at least to the west side of Kings Highway. Wouldn't say that we're seeing as many coming to the east side of Kings Highway. But as we move into the fall, we want to get more residents on both sides. And that's going to be a big push of our marketing as we move into September in the early part of October, including through the spring of next year. And then finally on redevelopment, we'll be publishing our August report here soon. But we see redevelopment, including infill, as really our primary pillar of the Downtown Alliance. And part of that is, just wanted to give you an idea, we are having active discussions with landowners We have about 41 acres collectively that we've been talking to landowners about. Five unique developers have expressed interest so far, and we've had 36 touch points in the month of July, or in the last 30 days, with developers and landowners alone. So this is ongoing work, continuing to build the trust with them, and then hoping to find out, at least from the landowners, what they want to achieve with their land, and then matching them with the right developer to do that work. And I work very closely with Devin Parks on this. So he and I work and talk once a week to talk about economic development and development projects that may occur.

Thank you. The Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance covers an area larger than I think most people consider downtown. And again, as I've said many times, we're not a normal town at the end of the day. Main Street's two blocks long and we're about to redirect traffic off Main Street to the new 501 at some point. Describe what we call downtown for your purposes.

Well, as far as the focus area, I like to call it the focus area of the Downtown Alliance, which is the mid-boundary. So it essentially starts at 21st Avenue North and works its way down to 12th Avenue South. Pretty much everything on the east side of Kings Highway, and then it kind of meanders up Oak Street and Broadway Street back to Wither Swash. It's probably the easiest way to explain it. So it's about 800 to 900 acres of total space that we work within.

And it includes, if my math is right, like 30 blocks of Ocean Boulevard? That's right. And then just me, I noticed a month or so ago the solid waste container, the bulk dumpster on Chester Street across from the library or Chapin Park. Not a fan of having that dumpster there, but why don't the gold caps use the... joint compactors that exist. We've got 24 joint compactors throughout the downtown area. Why don't they use those?

So I don't know the answer to that, but I can tell you that since Friday last week, the dumpster, the two compact, or the two dumpsters have been moved over to the lay down area between seventh and eighth on Chester Street that the city's been using for construction.

So they're not on, they're not behind the library anymore. That's a plus. But again, why don't we use the joint use compactors? That would seem logical.

Those are commercial compactors, and we charge commercial customers. So we would be putting public waste in there, and they would be paying for the public waste disposal in the compactors.

So we charge based on weight or based on number of pulls?

Something like that. Yes.

Yeah. Before the Gold Cap Ambassadors, what did we do with the trash that we picked up?

We did that, and then we discovered that we've figured that out in the process, and we made the change. Once we figured out, we got some complaints, or we discovered it through the process that, wait a minute, this isn't right. So we then made the change and put the dumpster out there, and now we've relocated it.

I did get some initial reports since it's been moved on Friday from Mike Snow yesterday. The two dumpsters over in that lay down area is very helpful for one. It's also a little bit more efficient than going from 12th Avenue South to 15th. So it's a good halfway point. So it seems to be working out pretty well for us knowing that we have two dumpsters to put the trash in. They pulled about 100 bags of trash out of trash cans over the weekend and the evening hours. So those dumpsters are really helpful and the location is a lot better than it was the last few weeks. So we're certainly appreciative of that.

I assume that some of the things that came out of the BTW Canal Nance neighborhoods are things that we could incorporate into a budget next year. None of that sounded terribly expensive, but I don't know quite all the details at this stage. I don't know what the drainage improvements may be, but if we can look at whatever his list is and see if there are things that the neighborhood would appreciate having done on a regular basis, that would be nice. Anybody else? Thank you, Jason.

All right, thank you. Thanks, Jason.

Council, that's the only workshop item we have. Is there anything that you all would like to discuss on the workshop? I think we have one executive session that we can squeeze in here before the regular meeting starts at 10. Any issues from you guys?

Mayor, I'm just curious, and this is a question to the manager with regard to cyber security type issues. In other words, how well trained are your top echelon of supervisors with regard to a digital, basically digital training? I think the world in which we're advancing, every department head needs to have more than just a dependence on our IT department with regard to training. Well, I'll defer to the Director of Information Technology, Brian Garrett. Excellent. Thank you.

Yes, sir. So can you kind of refine your question a little bit?

What I think we would be interested in is taking some small measure of comfort that all of our department heads in this world of ATI have adequate training with regard to safeguards and cybersecurity. In other words, at the highest level with regard to municipal government. Because if we do a little bit of it now, it's gonna be a lot before long. If you combine that with the new computing

Technology coming online that is lightning-quick, and I'm just I want us to be ahead of the game so to speak So we do have two cyber security analysts on staff one of them does have a master's degree in cyber security So as far as staffing you know we're fairly well staffed on that We do have an AI policy. That's We're very very close to being approved and put out for everybody

And do you discuss with your peers across the state, in Southeast, for instance, what they are doing to get ahead of this potential issue?

We do. We work with the MTASC, which is the Municipal Technology Association of South Carolina. We meet with them. We also are a member of SCCIC. which is basically like the cybersecurity initiative for the entire state. Most of the cities are a member of SCCIC. In fact, we have a meeting two weeks from now in Columbia with them.

Oh, great. And the issue when you combine AI technology with quantum computing that's around the corner, it just boggles the mind, so to speak. It's a little scary. Just want to make sure you guys are in the game. It keeps me up at night. Thank you.

At the Municipal Association this summer, they did a presentation on technology. group and talked about all of the things they're offering our municipalities to help protect us.

Good.

If nothing else, we do have one executive session item that I believe we can do before the 10 o'clock regular meeting. The following are invited to attend the entire discussion. Fox Simons, Will Bryan, Josh Brugger, Michelle Shumpert, Marla Bell, Meredith Denary, Amy Neuschaffer. And then a motion to go into executive session to discuss negotiations with Horry County and the private sector relating to formation of a multi-county business park to facilitate development of the surf park and other commercial development within the city limits. We would also invite for that executive session, Devin Parks and Chad Carlson. Is there a motion to go into executive session?

So moved. Second.

and any discussion from council all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed thank you we'll wander into the back and be back shortly so thank you again for being to this man All right, thank you. Thank you for your patience. Glad you're here this morning. City Council met in executive session, took no action. Is there a motion to come out of executive session?

So moved. Mike and Mike.

All those in favor of coming out of executive session, please say aye.

Aye.

any opposed thank you we're now back in the workshop we've got about two minutes here so we'll take a breather for two minutes then we'll start the regular meeting Good morning again. Thank you for being here today. This is our Tuesday, August 11th. It's hard to believe it's August. City Council regular meeting. The agenda is reasonably brief, but we'll again see if the meeting is that brief. If you will, please rise for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. And also at Councilwoman Conner's suggestion, we will have a moment of silence for the young father who lost his life on the beach during a swimming incident, Derek Moore from Georgia, who managed to rescue a young girl and then lost his life in the process. So please, a moment of silence for Derek Moore. Our thoughts are certainly with his family and friends at this time. Almighty God, creator and sustainer of all that is or will ever be, accept our profound gratitude for this day and all of its blessings of life and freedom. We remember those who make our freedom possible and recognize that it is because of their sacrifice that our community can practice our shared and enduring values of varied expressions of faith, civic duty, and respect for all. We gather today to render our public service in a proper manner and perform our civic duties in good order. Therefore, we solemnly invoke divine wisdom and guidance in this day's meeting.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

It's a reasonably short agenda. I believe one item is being continued today. Ordinance 26-51, 2026-51. We've had a request from the proponent to continue that item. It would be first reading, so we'll continue that to the next meeting. Any other changes to the agenda as presented? Is there a motion to amend the agenda? To amend the agenda to continue that item, please. So moved. Bill and Debbie. All those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye.

Aye.

And now is there a motion to approve the amended agenda, please? So moved.

Second.

Mike and Mike. Any discussion from council? All those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We have minutes from the July 28th regular meeting and workshop. Is there a motion to approve those minutes?

So moved.

Second. Debbie and Mike, please. Any discussion from council? All those in favor of the minutes as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you.

Public requests, presentations, awards, and memorials. We have our communications and creative services update. No proclamations today, so.

Hey, City Council. Erin Bolling here with your communications update. Welcome to our new assistant city manager, Josh K. Josh brings 25 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. He starts September 8th. Myrtle Beach's mosquito control team has been hard at work this summer. They've ramped up precautionary measures to keep the mosquito population under control. The fire department now has a 360 camera to help first responders in entrapment situations. It was bought through a grant, The Recreation Division gave out more than 100 bags of school supplies at the first ever Back to School Bash at Futrell Park. Thanks to all who showed up. Speaking of Futrell Park, City employees participated in the annual Futrell Park cleanup last week. Charlie's Place and the Myrtle Beach Colored School are featured in the Green Book of South Carolina for African Americans. Firefighters past and present took part in the Rhonda Brown Memorial Golf Tournament at Myrtlewood Golf Club. It's been a great year for sea turtles in Myrtle Beach with 11 nests so far. Camp Cool Out held its annual talent show at Mary C. Canty Recreation Center. Kids enjoyed showing off their skills. A heads up for you, Spark Park North is going through renovations through August 13th. Park staff members are installing a new water fountain. Both the large and small dog sections are closed while improvements take place. And a big shout out to Chapin Memorial Library. Thanks to its services, cardholders saved nearly $2 million last fiscal year by renting materials instead of buying them. Looking ahead, the annual Kids Triathlon is this Saturday at Pepper Gettings Recreation Center. The Back to School Bookbag Giveaway returns to Patrick Mobile Home Park Friday, August 14th from 5.30 to 7.30. And the Back to School Prayer Walk is Sunday, August 16th at 7 in the evening at Dougstraw Memorial Stadium. That's all for now. Have a great rest of your week.

Thank you very much. School is right around the corner and with that will come speed zones in school districts and all that safety requirements that we need to pay attention to as drivers and parents and residents of our city of Myrtle Beach. So thank you very much for that. We've got non-agenda items from the public. There's a 30-minute time limit at this point on the agenda. Each person has a chance to speak for five minutes. So if you take all of the five minutes, only six people are going to be able to speak at this point. There is another 30-minute window at the end of the agenda, so keep that in mind as well. Be judicious with your time if you can, please. Jennifer, are we people who've signed up?

Yes, sir. Pam Van Emden.

Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. Good morning, City Council. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. I wanted to be here as a longtime Myrtle Beach resident. I am a third generation owner on the block of 6400 North Ocean Boulevard. All of those four residences on 6400 are currently still generational. There's no one that is there that hasn't been since 19, well, we were 51, I believe we were the first one to be built. We're all still there, and we would like to hang on to that. So it's something special y'all have got, and we appreciate y'all. We appreciate the coexistence that exists. I wanted to thank you for addressing pedestrian sidewalk safety in the golf cart plans. So I'm here basically to talk about the golf cart plan overall, but most specifically for 65th Avenue because we are different. The safety part where golf carts can't go down the sidewalk, you actually put a sign up and that's genuine. It was a good thing and we want to let you know that we firmly approve of everything you did there. Coexisting in harmony with the city, our neighbors and tourists matters immensely to us. i'm standing here today because the proposal um before you with the golf course as of last meeting um creates an unsustainable strain on our residential green space at 65th avenue north it treats all beach access as interchangeable our privacy was altered in march of 2025. we never really had a golf cart problem i've given everyone a packet So you can see before March of 2025 that there was no way to get a golf cart in that area. There's plenty of parking that the city has for both golf carts and motor vehicles in the 65th Avenue access. There's also plenty of parking down every avenue, 65th included, for anybody with a residential parking sticker to park. I really want to ask council to consider a serious enforcement question. If you remove a parking space, as I understand is one of the things that you would do, or alter the entrance to allow golf carts to ride onto the unpaved lawn, what stops standard motor vehicles from doing the same exact thing? if a wide path is cleared full-size carts cars and trucks will follow golf carts right onto the grass it shatters pedestrian safety again and spills over into our yard what's your physical plan to prevent that and i know one of the things that you're considering is definitely a barrier we'd like to see that again and greenery it's would be preferential both to y'all and us as well i would believe We're asking City Council, before you do anything, at least at 65th, we've ordered a full land survey. We'd actually like to see what that looks like if you look in that packet. The bush that was taken out in 65th was, yep, nope, the aerial view. Part of that bush was an encroachment on to our property. Mm-mm, that, mm-mm, the area. It's like the second one.

All right, never mind.

Yep, just like the second view. Part of that bush was clearly on our property and provided privacy between the access and our porch, that one. Okay, let's be completely honest about what's happening here. This is really not a parking shortage, golf carts. It's a preferred parking problem. I believe that that could be solved for territorial parkers with the placard that I myself have for our beach residents. It allows me to park down, should we run out of space, down 65th Avenue. Now I have to be specific about where that is, but that is a hard placard. It seems like that could be, if you have preferred people that need a placard that could solve your parking problem for the oceanfront rather than giving up your control. Because it sounds like that's what's gonna really happen here is that you're getting ready to give away the city control. And once you give that away, it's gonna be very hard to get it back. So that's going to be allowing an unmanaged overload of heavy golf carts to continuously ride over, tear up, and park on top of fragile coastal green space to appease preferred parking in a short-sighted one-way street. Once you abandon the green space to vehicle traffic, you permanently surrender the city's future flexibility and beachfront control. With over 3,000 golf cart decals active and growing, sacrificing unpaved grass buffers will never catch up.

Pam, let me interrupt you if I may. I've glanced through this. I haven't read it in detail. There are a couple of points in here that I think are easy to address. There are some others that may not be quite so easy to address. Let us look at that. Let us have a conversation with you, if we may, and we'll figure out how best we can do this. The placards that you mentioned are really only for the neighborhoods east of Kings Highway. So the folks who have the legal ability to drive their golf cart from the other side of Kings Highway don't have the access to the city's beach without some additional parking. We've added lots of other residents. But let us look at this. Let us see if we can make some improvements. better plans for this particular one and we'll look at others as well. So thank you.

Appreciate that. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

The only thing I can make out of the next one is Billy.

Billy?

Thank you for letting me speak today.

But I'm just here for a little information. I live in Pine Lakes by McLeod Park there.

Can you give us the last name, please? Bianchi. B-I, Bianchi? B-I-N-C-H-I.

I live in Pine Lakes, near McLeod Park, within view distance of my home, and I know they put a little splash pad in there, and it's nice and everything, but I've seen people, blue trucks all over the other end of the park, and they said, oh, we're cutting all these trees down, and everything like that. The neighborhood is very quaint, and I know you've been in the neighborhood. I've seen you in our neighborhood campaign years ago, and you've knocked on my door. But I just want to keep it a quaint neighborhood. I don't want to turn it into a water wheels park. I mean, that's why we bought in that neighborhood, because we love the little quaintness and... It's beautiful there, and I know for myself that I couldn't cut down trees that were almost gonna come through my window because, you know, special thing, but they're planning on taking all the oak trees down there and putting up like circus tents from the picture I saw online. I'm just a little concerned, and... And I just worry about things, how far they can go. I don't know what the plans are to put bathrooms, no bathrooms. I mean, you know, I don't want to make it a, I hope you don't make it a state park. You know what I'm saying? It's a quaint little neighborhood. It's beautiful. And I know you've been in a neighborhood, so you've got to understand where I'm coming from, you know, and parking and trucks come in there, a food line and stuff. It could be a mess. You know, I'm just, for me, it's like common sense, There's a problem with common sense. It's not that common anymore.

Offhand, I've heard that there are concerns from the neighborhood about the trees being cut down. Is that for additional parking? I don't know that we've seen that plan at the end of the day. Can we look at that plan at some point and see what's going on, Josh?

Yes, we plan to bring a couple different plans to council on the playground equipment, updating that and what we want to do, and we'll get some direction from council. We are not doing anything today or tomorrow on that. It's going to come to you all for some guidance and input before we do anything.

Okay, thank you. Does that help?

Yeah, but if you could, I'd like to be informed of what the plans are in the future, or let the public know, let the people in our neighborhood know. I want everybody to be, we don't want to be shocked. You understand where I'm coming from?

Nobody likes a surprise, I understand.

You know, like, what is this, you know? I don't want to have Water Wheels Park right there, you know what I mean, either, you know?

Cool, we'll make that happen. Thanks for your time. Thanks. Jennifer.

Cheryl Essex.

Good morning, all. Good morning. I'd like to address, this has to do with what went on this weekend down at the coffee shop. and I did some research and section 1485B is the Myrtle Beach Code. It was enacted in 2004 for harmful drug-related or prostitution and it has also a mention of loitering. It's been amended several times. The last one time was September 08, and it had to do with commercial parking lots after hours that the owners have permission. I understand the lady who owns the shop used the parking lot. to help people, and she had a letter. I haven't seen it, I'm not gonna discuss it. She's here, I'm sure. But one thing that I discovered, and I was really surprised at, the Myrtle Beach Police Department has sale. They're the only one. Doesn't have to take a complaint. Doesn't have to come from any higher authority. Doesn't have to do, it's up to them to do what they call wellness checks around the city. And if they see any of these activities, then it is up to them either warn them to leave. You know, drugs and prostitution, I'm gonna put over to the side So it gives them immediate. And what I observed on some of the TV footage was on Sunday, it actually appeared that there was half of Myrtle Beach police in there arresting people. I looked at all of the mugshots and the ones that I could figure out on that day were for loitering. $101 fine. They were arrested, they were taken to J. Reuben, and they were bailed out yesterday. So, pardon? Oh, I'm sorry. The last amendment to this was in 2017. I can't find an exact date, but It stated that it was to really clean up and work on this chapter more. It had new legal definitions according to whatever the state the city goes to and follows. And it was about unlawful sexual conduct, solicitation, and transient people property. They said that an officer cannot arrest someone simply for loitering. If they give an order to disperse and they refuse, they can be arrested. If they are out beckoning to passing vehicles, or passing objects to individuals, which in my mind, and I'm not an attorney, has to do more with drug and prostitution. And if they remain on a commercial lot, which this lot is owned by the city and has clear signs, which I did see a picture of, then they can arrest them. I'm not sure why we haven't seen, and do you know if there were police cam recordings of these three days? That's my question.

Okay. Thank you. I've recently reread the ordinance that you've referenced. I believe this is in the court system at the moment. Right. We appreciate your concern today, and thank you for coming.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm going to try and keep it really short just to give time for others to be able to speak as well. I don't have any questions for you. I just really want to speak from my heart and I want you to try and understand a little bit more of what Fresh Brewed is. instead of a nuisance or a bunch of people gathering outside. I came into Fresh Brewed about two years ago, and I was just told that it was street church. I didn't know a lot about it. I was donating some clothes, and I'm going to tell you, I was extremely uncomfortable. I knew that I was around a lot of people that were homeless. I knew I was around some people that were actively fighting addiction, and I knew I was around some that had beat it. But God really convicted me. The reason that I struggled with it so much is because when I was 18 years old, I was kidnapped, I was robbed, and I was sexually assaulted for my place of work by a drug addict. But God triggered me in a way that I realized these are people. These are not the same person that hurt me. I continued to come back. For two years now, God has been doing something special in that place. People that were arrested actively speak of God. Three people were arrested that were cleaning the parking lot. You know, we go in there, we give a little sermon, we pray with them. If they don't want us to pray with them, we hand around a book so that they can write their prayers down. And I'm going to tell you that those prayers, 90% of them are so selfless and so simple. I've seen people walk in there that couldn't read and write that Ms. Kate has physically helped. Officers arrested people and said there's other resources, but there's not on the weekend. I implore you to come in there on a day that ministry is going on to see the hunger and the thirst for God and for them to just want to be seen as people, to have dignity and a small sense of hope. So that's, I just wanted to share that today.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Jennifer, who's next? But please, thanks.

Steve Marshall.

Good morning. Thank you for letting me speak for a few minutes here. Much like the previous two, I'm talking about what happened this weekend.

What I saw on the news... They reported that rule about loitering has been in for, I don't know, 15, 20, 30 years, whatever. I've lived here for seven years, been coming to Myrtle Beach every year since 1979. I have never seen what happened this weekend happen like it did not once, but twice. Everyone in this room at some point has the risk of being homeless, especially in today's economy. My wife and I have been volunteering there since January. I primarily cook once a month to feed the people that have no chance of getting food. Every one of you and most people out here, we know exactly when and where we can get food. The people that go to that facility have no idea when the next meal is coming. And they start lining up on Sunday at 9, 30, 10 o'clock because they know food is coming. And when I bring the food in, they offer to help me bring it in, open all the doors, and are exceedingly grateful for what we do there, what McCabe does there. I ask one question of every council member up here. Have you ever seen something like that happen before at that location? Your answer speaks volumes. Lastly, I want to leave with a quote that I firmly believe in. Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. If you've never been homeless and never been around them, please do not judge who and what they are. They are human beings just like us. Every one of us bleeds the same color and have the same kindness in our heart to other people. Because they're homeless, they are stereotyped that they have no rights. They are the forgotten few. Lastly, there was a story I saw the other day, I think it was in New York City. A guy was walking out of a movie theater at night, heard screams from a woman asking for help. Someone was trying to rape her. She had been evicted from her apartment and was waiting, needed two days to get a new place and had to sleep outside. If it wasn't for someone being nice, who knows what could have happened. I've been traveling to cities all over the United States. I've been approached by homeless people in major cities, Boston, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco. They are very aggressive and they're trying to get money out of you. Every one of these people that I've met at Miss Kate's are not that way. They are gracious, they are humble, they're just looking for someone to help them. That is all they're asking for. and no one is willing to do it, we turn a blind eye. Because it's easy to turn and walk away than it is to try and help. Thank you, I appreciate everything you guys do. You have a wonderful day.

Thank you very much. We've got about 10 more minutes. Are there more signed up?

Oh yeah. Jenna Barofaldi?

Good morning, Mayor Krua and council members. My name is Jenna Barofaldi and I'm a local hairstylist in Myrtle Beach. I'm here today because I volunteered this past Sunday at Fresh Brewed Coffee House. where I help provide free haircuts to people in our community experiencing housing insecurity. I do this every 12 weeks with my boss and coworkers at Celia's Hair Works, along with other volunteer cosmetologists. The haircuts were being done inside in the back of the coffee shop. We were there to offer something many of us take for granted, a haircut, conversation, and a chance for people to feel cared for and respected. During the event, some attendees were helping clean the coffee shop, others were on our list waiting for their turn. While we were inside working, someone came to the back and told us that seven people were arrested in the parking lot. Those arrested were connected to our event. Some were still waiting for haircuts, and others had received theirs already. One of those arrested was a coffee shop employee. I wasn't outside, so I don't want to claim I witnessed the arrests. I was inside when we were informed of what happened. Shortly after, we were told that police were taking pictures of our cars in the parking lot. I don't know why the cars were being photographed, and I'm not going to speculate, but it was unsettling to learn that the situation had expanded to include vehicles of the volunteers. Celia's Hair Works has been organizing these volunteer events at Fresh Brewed Coffeehouse for years. At a previous event, one of the individuals arrested later had helped Celia fix her haircutting clippers. He shared a skill and took time to help us. That moment stayed with me because it reminded me that a person's circumstances do not define their value or what they can contribute. These are people who can help contribute and have skills, relationships, and stories. They're not simply homeless people. I understand Myrtle Beach has rules and that our police and city officials have difficult responsibilities. I'm not suggesting rules should be ignored or that public safety is unimportant. What I'm asking is whether arrest was the most constructive response in this situation, especially during a community service event. I asked the council to review what happened, examine how homelessness-related incidents are handled, and ensure that people involved in community programs or receiving services have access to outreach and alternatives to arrest whenever safely possible. I also hope we can strengthen collaboration between local businesses, volunteers, outreach organizations in the city. Because the question should not only be, how do we get people out of this parking lot? It should also be, what can we do so they don't have to keep living in parking lots in the first place? Homelessness is complex. Moving people along or arresting them when other options exist does not address the underlying issue. We can hold people accountable when they create danger or harm while still recognizing humanity when they are simply trying to survive. I volunteer because I believe everyone deserves to feel human and cared for regardless of housing status. I'm speaking today because I don't want the story of that afternoon reduced to seven arrests. I want us to remember the full picture. People came to help. Volunteers were providing services. People were waiting their turn. One arrested individual had previously helped us with equipment, and a coffee shop employee was also arrested. There were people in that parking lot who were part of a community coming together. That matters. I believe Myrtle Beach has an opportunity to do more than manage homelessness. We can help people move beyond it. I'm not here to criticize our city or law enforcement. I care about this community and I believe we can find better responses when circumstances allow. I hope the city will look closely at this incident, listen to those involved, and work toward responses that prioritize dignity, connection, outreach, and real pathways to stability whenever safely possible.

Yes? The five minutes has elapsed, but thank you very much.

Thank you.

We've got about four minutes left. Are there other people signed up? There's another 30 minutes at the end that's on the agenda.

Sorry, good morning. Good morning. Clark Vereen, president of Forest Dunes Homeowner Association. Last week's discussion of the golf cart parking raised a lot of questions in the neighborhood and I just wanted to share some of that with you. I'm not looking for answers today, just wanted to give you some feedback on that. We do love our neighbors and our neighborhood. They've asked things like, how will these spaces be marked? Will cameras that are out there, will they cover these new spaces? Who will police the areas for the stickers? Currently at 63rd, which is golf cart only, they don't police that area. There are golf carts up in there with no stickers, and they don't check it. They just go right on past that area, just to give you an example of what is going on. What will happen when there's no sticker? in those areas how will you prevent golf carts from using the sidewalk or crossing over the sidewalk or we have some barriers along the sidewalks we got to look at that note that most of the crime in forestings is in the beach accesses so it is very important to the neighborhood for the safety and comfort of everybody that lives there You're looking at spaces on 67th Avenue, which is the emergency access. It's just all flat. The spaces that are there currently are full of sand most of the time, so a lot of people don't use them, or they've got to sit there and dig the sand out to even use them, or you get bogged down. That's happened to me at least twice. So I was just letting you know, you're going to add more in that area. We've got to take care of the ones we've already got. The word that I hear the most though is excessive. To add 30 spaces at 65th and 35 at 66 seems quite a bit much. We usually only see about 10 or so and that's usually 4th of July which is the busiest time. So I ask that y'all consider maybe cutting that in half. That's just something more reasonable and that way you don't have a lot of stuff there that you don't need and you can have more grass more greenery so probably half is more reasonable um we just ask that common sense be you know considered when you're doing all this and if i can help and give any more feedback be glad to i thank you for your time thank you clark will you send that to us in the form of an email please i will certainly do that i'll just do the dear city council thank you thank you we've got a minute is somebody want to try for a minute

Got one minute here. Were you on the list? Let me ask that first. You were on the list. I can please shoot for a minute. And then there was another 30-minute. The agenda is very light, so there's another 30-minute conversation coming up.

My name is Nancy Rose. I'm at 4701 North Kings Highway. I have a suggestion to generate revenue for the city. Off leash dogs are a huge problem on the beach. If you bump the off leash dog fee to say $500, increase patrols between 32nd and 52nd Avenue between sunup and 10 AM, you can generate enough revenue so that every city employee can get a raise in one season.

So thank you. And you stuck to the minute on that. That's nice.

Was that applause from our city employees?

So the issue, Mr. Manager and Mr. Assistant Manager, is that we need more enforcement on the beach of the off-leash, I can't say that, off-leash dog rule. How's that? So thank you. That was this portion of the non-agenda items from the public at the end of the agenda. There's another 30-minute section, so bear with us if you don't mind. Up next is the Consent Agenda. There's one item on the Consent Agenda. 26-83. Mr.

Manager, will you briefly describe that for us? Motion 26-83 to approve a memorandum of understanding between the City of Myrtle Beach Police Department and the City of Charleston Police Department. This is just a simple reaffirmation of a mutual aid agreement between the two cities to help each other when it is required. Council, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Yes.

Mike and Debbie, any discussion from Council? All those in favor? Jackie, sorry.

That's okay.

IE. It was an IE, I apologize. Any discussion from council? All those in favor of the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Moving to the regular agenda, we have first reading of 26-50, Jennifer.

First reading of ordinance 2026-50 to amend appendix A, zoning by enacting article 18, section 1809 to establish the Ocean Boulevard drinking place overlay district and to amend section 203 definitions to revise the defined term nightclub.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor, members of council. At its meeting, Planning Commission, the City Council directed Planning Commission.

Can you aim that mic a little better for you?

Thank you. City Council directed Planning Commission through first reading of ordinance 2026-41 and by invoking the pending ordinance doctrine to review a proposal text amendment establishing an Ocean Boulevard drinking place overlay. Council's direction was to review a proposal in which a hard cap of 150 persons capacity would be placed on all drinking establishments in the Ocean Boulevard area. What you have before you today is a very simple ordinance. That does that. First revision we did was we revised the nightclub. The only change that we made to the nightclub definition was in regard to the admissions. Over time we learned that through technology there are new ways to get into clubs other than cash transactions at the door or actual ticket purchases. So we put that in place to address that concern. This just goes over the pending ordinance doctrine and the setting of the 150. Occupy restrictions for bars, lounges, pubs, taverns, nightclubs, and other drinking places as defined by Section 203. It's ever limited to an occupancy of 150 persons or less. That does not apply to restaurants. It only applies to bars, lounges, pubs, taverns, nightclubs. The exceptions are the bars, pubs, taverns, nightclubs that were in place as of May 12th, 2026. Actual ordinance itself is very simple. It states, describes the bars and lounges, defines bars and lounges, and goes through and sets the conditions. Straightforward as requested. There was discussion amongst Planning Commission into other ways to regulate this aside from just a hard cap. That was a bit more than a zoning ordinance. um that's where we really got into i think more along the lines of general code and things along those directions and doing research on this one thing i found interesting that the state of south carolina really does not define a bar and or a nightclub the state of south carolina goes into stating bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of meals means a business that provides facilities for seating not fewer than 40 persons simultaneously at tables for the service of meals and that is equipped with a kitchen that is utilized for the cooking preparation and serving of meals upon customer request as readily available to its guests and patrons either menus with the listings of various meals offered for services or a listing of available meals and foods posted in conspicuous place prepares for service to customers upon the demand of the customer hot meals at least once a day Those are the establishments that the state has in place for you to basically have your liquor license in regard to a restaurant. Again, the state doesn't really define bars and nightclubs because you have to be bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of meals to serve liquor in the state of South Carolina. Our direction is, it's kind of hard to address behavioral issues through the zoning ordinance. Behavioral issues are gonna be, in speaking with the SLEDs, and we found a couple of sample ordinances that are out there right now that establishes committees, review committees for all these type things. They place guidelines upon them, and this is normally a duty of the police department, but it is a board that would consist of police department, director of planning and zoning, zoning administrator, fire marshal, business license, and things along those lines. So what you have before you right now is a very simple ordinance which sets a hard cap at 150 only for drinking places. We went down, our staff up and down the boulevard there's no place currently operating that qualifies as a bar and or a nightclub. I sometimes have to speak to both sides of the fence and my responsibilities up here. One of the things that was brought up a lot has been the fact that why are you putting in an ordinance for a condition that does not currently exist on the Boulevard? Um, Kind of goes back, you don't think about fixing the hole in your roof till it's raining. That's kind of what we're trying to do right here. That's the direction that we were given. This is not so much to cure as it is to prevent. Be glad to answer any questions that anybody has in regards to this matter.

Motion to approve. Second.

There's a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion from council?

I'm a little bit confused when we started this. My recollection was we were asking to go back to the Planning Commission to give us some ideas and some options. Mr. May has just pointed out to us that, you know, This maybe should not be addressed by a zoning ordinance. Maybe it shouldn't be. I thought we were gonna get back a discussion of what are the options, what are the problems, as Mr. May just pointed out. And so now we're coming back with a hard ordinance, and we haven't had a time to really discuss those things. And I think that we should. I ALSO THINK THAT WHAT I SAW, AND I DON'T KNOW IF YOU HAVE A MAP SHOWING THE COMPLETE LENGTH OF THE THANK YOU. THIS JUST SEEMS TO BUILD CATEGORY, THIS IS AN OVERREACH, A COMPLETE OVERREACH. I mean, we're talking about taking over. We were originally talking about Ocean Boulevard, but that part of Ocean Boulevard down in the area where we have a lot of some of these drinking establishments that are already there. You're talking about segmenting the people that already have a license to do whatever And so they're going to be grandfathered in somehow. Mr. May says this is a very simple ordinance. But in my mind, it's overcomplicated. It's overreached. And I would prefer for us to have more discussions about this and to talk about other ways that might be useful. Now, I know that everybody in this body has heard from the various associations that represent entertainment, restaurants, drinking establishments, et cetera. Not one of them has said, hey, look, we understand this is a good job. This is what you ought to be doing. So I'm a little bit concerned that this is a very large overreach. I know that we have a motion, but I think we need to take a step back.

Well, the motion could also fail.

I understand, but it's... I think it's an overreach, and I'll let it go at that.

I'll jump into here at this point and sort of lead part of the conversation. I'm not going to support this today. We've not needed it for the past 13 years. In our discussion earlier with Jeremy, businesses will have two business licenses, and it's the drinking establishment license that would be the definition, if I'm not mistaken. This hasn't been a problem. I sort of look at those establishments in the zone that are there and successful. The Bowery apparently wouldn't qualify for this. The Bowery's not a very big place at the end of the day, but it's more than 150 seats or capacity. And the 150 seems to be an arbitrary number. I know that when it was considered more than a decade ago, the concern at that point was, that we might end up with a large club of 500, 1,000, 1,500, as some of the beach towns, particularly in Florida, do have, but we don't have one of those and not aware that any of those are on the horizon at this point. I didn't coin this, but it struck me as a good way of expressing it. This is a solution in search of a problem. And I'm not sure that we need to seek progress through restriction rather than through positive permissions and affirmations. Just out of curiosity, who's here for this discussion today? Raise your hand.

If I could kind of address the comments that were made. We followed the directions that were given to us in the pending ordinance doctrine. Mr. McClure made the reference to option. This ordinance that I presented to you here today, it is nothing more than an option. Just because it's produced from my department, it's produced from my department. That's an option for you as well, to either pass it or fail it or to send another organization back to talk in regard to something else. I think the Bowery that you made is a very good example. If you look at state law requirements, it's bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation of serving meals. How does it meet that criteria? It has seating for not fewer than 40 persons, is equipped with a kitchen that is utilized for cooking, preparation, and serving of meals, has menus readily available to people, and prepares to serve customers upon the demand hot meals at least once each day. So the Bowery checks all those boxes.

they have a license as a drinking establishment and i would argue that if old smoky which has located at broadway at the beach and certainly has a capacity of more than 150 i assume we're inclined instead of locating at broadway at the beach to locate somewhere on ocean boulevard that we would look favorably upon that that's a large building that's well done that you can take your family to. It is a drinking establishment at the end of the day, but they've got other reasons to go visit them, including food, including live music. You also realize that we allow the Carolina Country Music Festival to occupy 13, 14 acres downtown with 35 or 40,000 people. And that drinking is a component of that event as well. And 35,000, I did the math at one point, but it's significantly larger than 150 at the end of the day. That's pretty obvious. Yes, sir, I agree with that statement. Again, I'm not aware that this is a problem that needs to be solved at the moment. As Bill points out, and I think you even acknowledged that zoning may not be the best approach for this at the end of the day. Agreed.

Council? But if Old Smoky were to go locate, they would go in as a restaurant on the boulevard.

But they'll have a second business license as a drinking establishment. And Jeremy's giving me a nod over there. So they would fall under this definition, I believe.

No, sir.

You've changed the definition so that it no longer is limited specifically to drinking establishments? It's the definition of the drinking place.

Are you going to allow this topic?

Yeah. It is the allowance of the drinking place. It's the fact that it's basically that 60-40 unwritten rule. They would serve more food than they would alcohol.

Mm-hmm.

We currently have restaurants on the Boulevard right now that have full-fledged bars that serve alcohol with a capacity of over 150, but they're primarily a restaurant.

They're a restaurant.

Occupancy restriction. Bars, lounges, pubs, taverns, nightclubs, and other drinking places as defined in Section 203 of the Zoning Code shall be limited to an occupancy of 150 persons. Jeremy, is there anything you can add to this conversation? I'm not saying you have to, but is there something you can add to the conversation?

I can try. All right, so every restaurant slash bar in Myrtle Beach carries two licenses. They carry one for the restaurant and they carry one for the bar. The reason they carry one for the bar is because they serve liquor by the drink or liquor. They carry something other than a PLB from the Department of Revenue. It is the liquor license. That is the piece that allows them to operate not only as a restaurant, but as a bar. And there's a lot of restaurants throughout the day until they get to maybe 10 o'clock that they change their operations at that point to operate more as a bar. That allows them to do both. And that's where both of those NAICS codes for the drinking place and for the restaurant are carried by those restaurants. There are some restaurants here, there are places like Delicatessen's or things like that, they only carry one license and that's it. It's strictly a restaurant, it's nothing more, doesn't operate as such and never will unless they want to prove or get their liquor license. At that point, we license them with that license as well. I think at the end of the day, I'm a little confused, too. The 60-40 unwritten rule, I did a little homework on that. That was pending ordinance doctrine from the super block, I believe. I don't know anything of that. We don't look at that, the 60-40 split. We can. If we have some direction to do so, we can. We can dig into numbers and let you know exactly how each bar or restaurant, at the time that they become a bar, what they really serve as far as food and alcohol. We can do anything.

Do we license anything as a bar, a lounge, a pub, a tavern, a nightclub? We do. So there's a nightclub license?

Well, it fits under the 722410 NAICS, and that's a really good question. So a few years ago, and I won't name the name of the bar restaurant, they challenged that. And in court, the city lost to the argument based on when we look at our NAICS code section for 9.7 in business license ordinance, That 722410 NAICS carries multiple descriptions. It matches everything that he said, and it includes nightclub. But to have the actual license description as nightclub, I don't know of any single NAICS or any single business that actually just carries that one designation. And if they did, what happens in business license when you go through the approval process, his folks will look at that and say, is this area zoned for that type of operation? They'll look at that license description. I don't think there's any that actually carry the name nightclub.

I mean, I might be more inclined to support this if the number were instead of 150, 400 or 500. I don't know what maximum capacity is, but we have about 800 restaurants inside the city of Myrtle Beach. This limits it to the Ocean Boulevard section as identified here. If it's a good idea on Ocean Boulevard, would it be a good idea for the whole city? I just am not able to support this at this point for a variety of reasons as I hope I've explained.

Council? I have a question.

Is it me or Ken?

It's either me or both. I have heard before and I've heard today about this unwritten rule 6040. How do you enforce something that's not in writing?

I don't.

Ken has an answer.

That's the same dilemma that was faced by the state. That's where I'm going back to bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of meals. That is what people refer to as the 60-40. For you to be bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of meals, it's got to be above 50%. So that's where the unwritten, even the state kind of applies that unwritten 60-40 rule, but it's based off the definition of the bona fide engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of food. So if you are engaged in that, the state will view you as a restaurant. A question I've got for Jeremy, do we have any establishments currently on the boulevard that are only licensed as a bar and do not have a restaurant license?

I'd have to look, but I would probably say yes. Maybe a very small handful, five maybe. Everybody's supposed to have the ability to serve food. And I think that actually comes from state law enforcement division and state law. If you're going to be serving alcohol, you've got to serve some portion of food. That takes us back to how much? 50-50, 60-40. Where I lean is in the old pending ordinance doctrine for the super block, it clearly said 60-40. I don't have anything like that. Meaning, back to your question, how do I enforce it? I don't. There's nothing for me to enforce.

Are there any bars over a capacity of 150 that solely have just a bar license on the boulevard?

I wouldn't know that. We don't count capacity.

Another question, would using fire code in terms of occupancy, would that be a reasonable option so that an organization that has, a new organization, they either build the building or they're going to rent space. And that space allows for hypothetically 200 customers. But what they want to do is they want to be a nightclub or a drinking establishment. So wouldn't we use the fire code and occupancy? And I think part of this is also the question of limited because there's a potential for bad actors to come into play. I've heard that, and I think there are other ways to deal with that. As an example, and I'm not saying this is the right way to do it, but, you know, in We provide establishments to rent golf carts and they have to apply and they have to abide by certain rules and they get their license, for lack of a better description, to do that. So shouldn't we or could we use occupancy by fire code and then at the same time come up with a reasonable way to have people in this business to be really good corporate citizens and good citizens to the city by licensing them in some way. And I'm not sure license is the exact technical way to talk about it. City attorney could advise us on that.

I think the definition of 150 occupancy is the fire code. Is that not correct? Is that not what you were proposing?

Chris Thompson is here to correct me if I am wrong on this. Occupancy is set whenever you submit your building plans to the Construction Services Department. Occupancy can change by the addition of tables or the removal of tables. So your occupancy is set whenever you either go to build a new building or to do the renovation. So the occupancy is basically set by the building code, and the fire marshal then enforces it.

Chris? Chris? Is that correct? Okay, he gave a thumbs up, so very good. Council, other folks with an opinion on this?

Mayor, the only thing I would just add, I hear everybody in concerns, and I know just from my take from, and I'm going to talk history, when years ago when we would have problems with the bars turning out, on Ocean Boulevard and when people, it's not just, you go in a restaurant and you eat and you enjoy your meal and you leave and you go home. When people go to bars, they go in a bar and I'm assuming they go in and consume a bunch of alcohol and when they leave and some of them just act a fool. I mean, that's really what happens. And that's what used to happen down there on Ocean Boulevard. And I'm just concerned that if we just open this up and all of a sudden you got a place that can't handle 300 people and they're going in there and consuming alcohol. No, we can't regulate how people behavior and all that stuff. But I can at least say that i'm not pleased with a bar down there that can hold 300 people and then they're gonna when they get out the problem we used to have was they would run through the hotels and pull the fire alarms and knocking on doors and all that kind of stuff I'm sitting here looking at the map. So if the map is going to 82nd Avenue, my question is, could somebody open up a, I think you, I don't even know the name of the place out at Broadway. Old Smokies. Old Smokies. Is there anywhere in the city where Old Smokies or a place like that can open up from 82nd Avenue to 26 North? Yes. Okay. So if it can, somewhere there's a chance for when they close, if it's a bar.

See, that's the slippery slope that even the state seems to be on right now. They won't really classify you as a bar or a nightclub. They're going to classify you as a bona fide food service establishment. It kind of goes back to the thing that Mr. McClure referred to as all the research, some of the research that we did called it a special assembly occupancy license. That if you're gonna be serving the liquor and all that type stuff, that you have to go before that committee. I'm normally headed up by the police department and the fire marshal, but there are other departments that are on there for review. You go in and you place restrictions on that property. If they don't adhere to any of those restrictions, the 45-day suspension, and if it happens again, it's a revocation of their license. But again, that's a whole lot more than zoning right there along those lines.

I guess all I'm just saying is I'm just worried that, and Ken, you said something earlier. If you got a hole in the roof and you plan for it, All I'm just trying to see if we can plug up something before something happened. That's me, that's just me. I just think that sitting here thinking about what used to happen, yeah, I know times have changed now, but I don't think people have changed when it come to getting too much friendly stuff in bars.

Ain't but so many ways to get drunk. Yes, sir.

So I would say one of the biggest changes I've seen in regards to places where alcohol is served is the requirements now of training, tips training, that type of thing for servers. So I think that ABC Board, SLED, whoever has really stepped up their expectations of places that serve alcohol. I had when this first came to us I thought wow this is a great idea and I really have over the last couple weeks in looking at this and and having conversations have felt more like we need to look for other options to hold establishments accountable for bad behavior and not necessarily through zoning

Yeah. You know, I got to tell you, we got places in this right now that we have trouble with on a regular basis. And we go there, our law enforcement goes there, and they end up having to clean it up, and they end up having to light up the establishment. You know, the whole thing is not everybody's gonna play by the rules. And you can, I don't care, there's people in this audience that I know personally that have establishments. And they have trouble in their places, but the trouble they have doesn't deal with the younger minds of people today. When you leave out of an establishment today and you bump into somebody That's the concern. It's not about the establishment. It's about what the establishment brings and when you have the mindset of our young folks today. And it doesn't take much for anybody's imagination to look around this country, look around this state, look around North Carolina and see what takes place. And you know, we've been very blessed this summer because we haven't had situations on the boulevard that we've had in the past few years. And you can talk about how well could it be that way, but let me tell you this here. The probability of an establishment like folks are wanting to do with that amount of people in that establishment, and copious, I don't care what anybody says, I worked these things when I was a young police officer, and the copious amount of alcohol that's consumed in a club, I'm not talking about a little bar, I'm not talking about a restaurant, I'm talking when it turns from a restaurant into a club, you're gonna have trouble. We always did, and on the Arts and Innovative District is a perfect example of problems. All we gotta do is look back at problems we had with clubs in that area and the calls for service that our police department had to go on, the shootings we had, the stabbings we had. people being killed. A young man I know was working in an establishment, and he was stabbed to death trying to break up a fight. Now, knives have went away, sports fans. It's guns now. And when people start pulling the trigger, they don't care which direction that bullet goes. And that's something we all need to keep in mind. We talk about wanting to make Myrtle Beach safe. If you wanna make Myrtle Beach safe and you wanna continue to improve what we have going on in this city, this is where you need to understand. Because if you think by allowing those large establishments to take place, that that's not gonna happen. All due respect, you got your head stuck in the sand. And I'm being just as sincere about that as I can be. Wanting to do something, I understand people who want to create a club, maybe they want to have an establishment, because obviously the more people you can put in there, reality is the more money you can make. But is it worth the price? And I think, I'm hoping I'm not speaking out of turn here, because I'm not 100% sure. But I think a location in this town kind of did away with some clubs, and their problems in that area reduced significantly. So let's just be real. I've made a motion for this to pass. Got a second. If it passes, good. But if it fails, my conscience is clean. And I will tell you that don't believe it'll be okay with that to take place. If you do, again, I apologize.

We do have a motion and a second on the floor.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. So before two days ago, I was in support of this. past couple days, I've talked to some people and everything. My biggest concern is that we're stifling for new businesses to come in. That it's not going to be business friendly looking for, and that's what we've been wanting, is new businesses to come in. So that's my biggest concern. I agree with everything that Mr. Lauder has just said. We've done a really good job in the past trying to keep stuff under control. But on the other hand, we need some new businesses to come in also. So that's kind of where I'm at. But I still think that I'm probably going to vote for it.

would go back to this was an issue 13 years ago when we were concerned that larger clubs there were vacant spaces larger clubs were potentially coming and that did not materialize as far as i can tell the 150 number is is arbitrary was there any support that uh above 150 you've got Mayhem occurring and below 150, you don't have mayhem. Even to Councilman Lauder's point, the bad behavior could still exist in an establishment that allowed 100 people as opposed to 150. Anyway, Phil, do you have anything? Comments from the public? Discussion from the public?

Alex Vogel. This is ridiculous. Lollies on 3rd isn't included in this. How much trouble has there been there, Mike? Excuse me? Lollies on 3rd Avenue. How much trouble has there been there? The rest of the city is not included in this. What's going to stop somebody from opening up on Kings Highway or 3rd Avenue North or 501, any place else? To Mark's point, this is a solution looking for a problem. Why now? Why not last year? Is this now a problem? There is no problem. It's your imagination. Get over it.

Thanks.

Mr. Mayor, I just hope we can just keep down.

They're not being terribly disruptive. It's brief.

I think it is in disrespect.

I'm willing to accept the boos as well as the applause.

Mr. Mayor, members of City Council, I'm Victoria Tobin. I serve as the Executive Director of the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association.

Some of our members are here with me today.

NBHA represents hotels, restaurants, attractions, and suppliers of tourism-related businesses throughout the Grand Strand. And they have been contacting us about Ordinance 2026-50. First, I want to thank council, city staff, and the Planning Commission for the thoughtful time and attention that has gone into this issue. We appreciate the revisions that have been made as the ordinance has evolved and the effort to provide greater clarity. MBHA shares the city's commitment to maintaining a safe, welcoming, and family-friendly Ocean Boulevard. Public safety is not simply important to our industry, it is essential to our success. Our members depend on visitors feeling safe and understand the partnership between business, the city, and law enforcement to help make that happen. The question before City Council today is not whether public safety should be protected. We all agree that it should. The question is whether a fixed occupancy limit is the best long-term tool to accomplish that goal. Before we decide how to solve this issue, I think it's important that we first define the problem we're trying to solve. If the concern is that a future establishment could create public safety challenges because of how it operates, then we should adopt policies that address those operational risks directly. If the concern is ensuring that public safety resources can effectively support future development, then let's create standards that require applicants to demonstrate how those needs will be met. In either case, the question becomes whether a fixed occupancy threshold is the best measure or whether operational standards and accountability would better accomplish the city's objective. Occupancy is certainly one factor to consider, but we believe it is only one piece of the equation. Public safety is ultimately determined by how a business operates, its security plan, crowd management, transportation coordination, alcohol service practices, staffing, and partnership with law enforcement. Two establishments with the same occupancy can prevent very different public safety demands depending on how they are managed. This is why we encourage council to consider a framework that focuses first on responsible operation and accountability. Our concern is that the ordinance begins with a fixed standard rather than an opportunity for future proposals to demonstrate how they can operate safely. That approach may unintentionally discourage the very type of responsible investment Myrtle Beach hopes to attract. Some investors may decide not to pursue projects here at all, rather than invest significant time and resources without a clear pathway for consideration. Perhaps there is another approach that achieves the same public safety objectives while preserving flexibility for future redevelopment. Rather than beginning with an automatic prohibition, consider beginning with an expectation of responsible operation. allow future applicants to demonstrate before approval is granted that they have comprehensive plans for security, crowd management, transportation, staffing, and coordination with public safety. Those commitments could become enforceable conditions of approval with clear performance standards and meaningful consequences for businesses that fail to meet them. In other words, provide a process that provides a clear pathway for responsible investment while also giving the city the ability to respond quickly and decisively when operators fail to meet those standards. That approach starts with high expectations instead of low ones. It welcomes quality operators who are willing to meet those expectations while ensuring the city has strong tools to hold bad actors accountable. If the problem we are trying to solve is how businesses operate, not simply how many people they can accommodate, then perhaps our regulations should be in there as well. We believe that approach better balances public safety with thoughtful economic development and allows future projects to be evaluated on their individual merits rather than through a one size fits all occupancy threshold.

Victoria, I think you're at your clock. I can't see the clock, but I think we're close.

It says five. I don't think you started it. I'm almost there.

I'm landing my plane.

I'm landing my plane. We all want the same outcome, a safe Ocean Boulevard, a strong tourism economy, and responsible investment that enhances our community. Cities are often judged not only by what they prohibit, by the standards that they establish. We encourage Myrtle Beach to establish the highest operational standards in South Carolina, and then hold every operator accountable to meeting them. We believe that approach protects public safety, encourages quality investment, and preserves flexibility for the future. NBHA asks that you don't approve this ordinance as it is written today. And we stand ready to work with city council, staff, law enforcement, residents, and the business community to help develop the right solution for Myrtle Beach.

Thanks for your time. Thank you, Victoria. This didn't arise from the business community. This was a suggestion from the staff side of life. Any other comments from the public?

Council, Mayor, thank you for letting me speak. My name is Tim Poole, and I am the manager and owner of a local band here in Myrtle Beach. Before starting my own band, I played with one of the bigger bands in Myrtle Beach, Julio and the Saltines, for four years. I've played the Grand Strand from Little River to Muriel's Inlet over the past 10 years. And what I'm seeing here from a musician's standpoint, having played every establishment that you guys could imagine, sells alcohol, has live music, serves food, is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that doesn't exist. You go to Muriel's Inlet on the Marsh Walk, dead dog, Wahoos. Wicked Tuna, all run live music, serve copious amounts of alcohol on a nightly. Way over 150 people. Where's the problem? You don't see fights. You might see one every once in a blue moon. And if it is, it's not 150 people. It's not 300 people. It's not 500 people. It might be four or five people. So... to put a limit of 150 people, 150 people is still enough people to cause a major problem that you're saying is happening that I've never seen happen. Captain Archie's in Little River, huge. During bike week, 500 people in that place. Alcohol flowing everywhere. Nobody spills into the street. Nobody spills out into Little River or anywhere and starts a riot or a problem. You're putting a clamp down here that's going to, if you say 150 people in each establishment, okay, so basically what's going to happen when all those establishments become full with 150 people? Where are the other people that are down there on the boulevard looking to eat, drink, see live music, where are they gonna go? Because you can't get in here and you can't get in there and you can't get in there because everywhere's full. So they're either gonna go, if this mayhem they're creating, they're gonna go create it in the street on the boulevard because they can't get in anywhere. Or if they're not there to create mayhem, they're just there to eat, drink, be entertained, they can't get anywhere in Myrtle Beach, they're gonna go to Muriel's Inlet. They're gonna go to Little River. They're gonna go local on the water in North Myrtle. And they're gonna say, the heck with Myrtle Beach. I can't get in anywhere. You put a cap on it, you're gonna put a cap on how many people can stay in a hotel too? Because where are all those people that are here gonna go if you cap everywhere at 150 people? If you capped Old Smokey in Broadway at 150 people, and I've played there probably six times since they opened with my band, and I'm telling you right now, they're selling way more alcohol than they're selling food. When you watch those people gather around those bars and order those flights, if you told them you could only have 150 people here, you'd put them out of business. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. What my dad always said is you are making a problem that's not a problem and then trying to find a solution to solve a problem that don't exist. Create a crisis, make up an imaginary solution. It's the political way. But what you're gonna do is you're gonna make an already bad enough problem of tourists not coming here, not wanting to come here, you're gonna make it worse than it already is. Think. Knee jerk never works. When you think about what you're doing, you're going to put a bunch of musicians like me in a position where we don't have, we've got nowhere to play in Myrtle Beach, and we're going to just be in Muriel's Inlet, Surfside, Little River, North Myrtle, no entertainment in Myrtle Beach. Because if they can't put but 150 people in there, they can't afford to pay us.

Thanks, Tim. I think that was Victoria's point as well. Hang on, folks. I think that was Victoria's point as well, that you're automatically telling people you can't come to Myrtle Beach because we don't want that size crowd. And I would say if 150 is... good. Why wouldn't 140 be better? Why wouldn't 120 be better? Why wouldn't limit it to 50 people and call that a day if that really is the concern? One more, if there's any one other person that wants to speak, we need to move on. We've got other stuff to do today.

I have a couple questions. Speaking with the lady that's representing the hospitality industry, the limit to a crowd is not a major factor as the security and how their plan of attack is if something goes wrong. I was in the trade show industry, so as I said earlier, I traveled around the country, and every time we went into a new city, we had a pre-con meeting with the entire city and the police department and they gave advice of what we need to do for the following situations so everyone knew the plan of attack going in and that could be enforced and then done if situations happen. We had bomb threats, we had guns, we had everything that could happen at a trade show and they've happened. I've been where we had bomb scares in New Orleans. Myrtle Beach is a tourist city. There's some other tourist cities around the country, New Orleans, stuff like that. Have you reached out to them to see what they do for bars and restaurants as far as security purposes and stuff like that? It's not a word about the capacity. I understand Councilman Lauda's talking about guns and stuff like that, again, It's the individual. It's not because of the facility that caused that. They got drunk, they lost their control, and they took a bad option of pulling out a gun or a knife. That's not the establishment's fault. That's not the proper, unless they over served them, which restaurants have started changing because of drunk driving things where they started getting sued Because someone got drunk in the facility, went out, caused an accident, and then the establishment was getting sued. So I'm sure there's policies for that as well. It's more about policy, security, and making sure you can enforce when the rules they break. As someone said about the dog lease, maybe say if you break more than four rules, we close your business. You think someone's not going to follow the policies and they're going to lose their business because they break a couple of rules that is established before they come in? But as a new business, you want to know what the rules are, what my ground rules I got to play by, then I can make a decision. But if it's going to change beforehand and you can't give me that, as she said, they're not going to come here.

Thank you, Steve. All right. And we appreciate it.

Yes, sir.

I was going to ask one question. Those of you who raised your hands from the hospitality crowd who indicated that you were here for this, all those who are in favor of it, raise your hands. Okay.

Call for the question.

Any other council discussion at this point? All those in favor of Ordinance 2026-50, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, please say aye. Aye. So it failed today, four to three.

Yes, ma'am? Can I suggest, though, that we get together with the Hospitality Association and do some discussions? Absolutely. And try to make things a little more streamlined where everybody can live with it, if that's possible? Yes.

Thank you so much. Motion, Jennifer, motion 26-84. to increase the salaries of the associate judges. They, go ahead.

Motion 2026-84 to increase the salaries of the associate judges to $52,246.05 per year.

The associate judges are among those few people that City Council appoints. So they are not on the list of staff members who receive the pay raises that are included as part of the budget every year. So the three part-time judges have not had a salary adjustment since 2023. The Chief Judge, Chief Justice, Chief Judge, Municipal Judge came to us and said, would you consider this? This is not a retroactive increase. This would be an increase as of today, basically. They're currently at 46,000, and this would take them to 40, I'm sorry, 52 to 46. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve. Second.

Mike and Debbie.

Debbie was quiet, but she was there.

I was there, sorry.

Any discussion from council?

I'd like to make a note that this was put in the budget that we approved already.

It was anticipated in the budget, is that a correct statement? Okay. Any discussion from the public? All those in favor of motion 26-84, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Jennifer, motion 26-85.

Motion 2026-85 to declare certain vehicles abandoned or derelict pursuant to the authority of Article 41 of Title 56, South Carolina Code of Laws 2001.

The vehicles are being shown on the screen. It's hard to see them. Is there anybody here who's representing any of these vehicles? Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to plan.

Bill and Mike. Any discussion from council? Any discussion from the public? All those in favor of the motion to declare these abandoned or derelict, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. We're back to the non-agenda items from the public. On the agenda, as has been for decades, there's another 30-minute window. Do we have people who've still signed in that we've not addressed at this point? Let's start there then.

Patricia Yost.

Good morning, Council. My name is Patricia Yost, and I am here today just to kind of support the Fresh Brew Coffee House. I brought with me a picture done by one of the clients that goes to the coffee house. I don't know if you'd like to see it closer. No? We're good. Okay. A while ago, Kate opened the coffee house for a First Friday art walk, and I was particularly moved by this particular sketch. It was just done on a piece of paper like this, with no fancy pencils, nothing in particular that would make it outstanding. So I purchased it with the intention of showing the artist that he's now a professional, because someone actually bought his painting. and to encourage him to move forward. Since then, Alex is no longer around. No one seems to know where he went. But I just wanted to say that I'm very proud to have this in my home. It's a part of me and I pray for this gentleman daily. Anyone who knows the talents, who knows what talents are concealed with these people that we consider useless and sometimes a nuisance to the community. We have no idea what's hiding behind the scruffiness and the homelessness. I want to say a special thanks to Kate and to her unselfish volunteer staff for supporting these people who no one else will support and showing that they are human with a soul and that they also are worthy of respect. Thank you.

Thanks, Pat. Jennifer.

Kate Curran. Kate.

Kate.

good morning good morning mayor council city management thank you for your time today um you know i i thought that perhaps we could talk about the uh ordinance that the astute woman read to us earlier um but i think that i'll leave that to the um I'll leave the minutiae to the licensed attorneys and not to us lowly JDs. But you know, as a Juris Doctor, as somebody that has a law degree, I feel like I have a public responsibility to improve access to justice and support the rule of law. And that's a tricky balance. I would like to do a little housekeeping. After the shocking events that happened on Saturday and Sunday that were targeted in the parking lot, I... I did something that I rarely do, but I think was necessary. And I showed you what only my therapist sees so that I don't dump on my friends and family. But I think it was absolutely necessary because now people are actually talking about what is happening. I have come to you and I have asked for you. Actual solutions. And you don't care. I do not want to run a resource center as a Band-Aid to a hole in a dam. I have continued to tell you that this is not feasible. I'm taking a lot of heat, and that's OK, because that's what I was built for. I called out the chief, Chris Smith, acting interim chief, because he is asking his employees to arrest people that need help. We, again, I'm gonna say it, we are failing our first responders and our police officers. And as somebody that used to be a police officer, and I thank you, You should know what police officers are asked to do. We're failing them. I was looking at officers that actually send people to the coffee house for help, arresting people for sitting or standing. Nobody had drugs, nobody had paraphernalia. A man had a beer or some kind of alcohol in a bag. Half of the people were not read Miranda. Is that a thing anymore? I don't know. If you arrest me when I'm arrested, you better read me my Miranda rights. I want to thank all the community members, the bands, the resources, the victims' advocates, the people that are here from the shelter that we currently have, the food pantries, and all the volunteers for coming here and continuing to tell you that you're failing our community. I don't want to do it like this. I want to go back to the venue space. That's just a little weird and quirky and everybody's allowed. But I got tired of watching people die because we're failing them. And you know what? You're right. If you give people a place to come, you build it, they will come. So let's build it. You want to know, ask questions. Why? Josh asked me one day, why are all those people out there? Because they know that if they show up there, they're going to get help. When there isn't the help that they need. So you're right. If you build it, they will come. I don't think they'll come from around the country. If I had a program I thought that would help every single person on this planet, I'd invite them. We have the pro forma. We don't need to do another feasibility study for the love of God. We're wasting money. We're wasting talent. We're wasting time. Thank you.

Thank you. Come on. Jennifer, is there anybody else? I'm sorry.

It's more.

I don't know that we'll get everybody in who's signed in because it is a limited amount of time. Next.

Phil Fleckenstein.

morning mayor morning city council um i've never done anything like this so forgive me uh i'm a social worker i've been a social worker for the better part of a decade um i'm i've worked with hiv clients i've worked with uh cancer clients uh home health hospice now i work in community health and it's my first time working with homeless people and seeing them, seeing their conditions, you know, sending them to Kate, sending them to, taking them to Helping Hands to get food every month. You know, I see this. And they're people. Everybody I've dealt with in the past 10 years as a social worker, they have one common thing. They're people, they're human beings. whether they're dying of cancer, whether they're homeless, it doesn't matter. They're human beings. And they all get treated the same by me, by my coworkers. And I'm just not seeing it here. You know, I... You arrest someone for loitering without, and I don't know, because obviously I haven't seen the body camera footage, but I don't know if they were asked to leave the parking lot before they were arrested or not, if they were given a chance to move off the city lot. But by arresting them and putting this on their record, You're giving them a step down going forward. I'm helping people try to find housing. I'm helping people try to find jobs. Job applications have a thing on there. Have you ever been convicted of anything other than a traffic stop? Well, now all these people might get a ding on their record for that. And they may still get hired somewhere, I don't know. But housing, when housing, landlords do background checks. Those background checks are gonna come up with these loitering charges. And so I just, you wanna solve the problem. I get it. No one thinks about a large, any city thinks about large homeless problem as exactly that, a problem. I grew up in Lubbock, Texas. We didn't even have a shelter and we were 250,000 people when I left. There was no shelter. There was no community resource coffee shop. There was nothing. They allowed them a space to build tents on some empty city land for a little while. They blocked a church from taking one of the abandoned buildings downtown and turning it into a shelter. So what I hear everywhere I seem to hear about a homeless problem is, Well, we don't want them here. They're people. They're going to be here whether you like it or not. And arresting them for loitering, sending them up to either the city jail here or sending them over to J. Reuben, guess what? They get on a bus. They come back down here because this is where Helping Hands is. This is where the community kitchen is. This is where Fresh Brute is. That's why they're all around here, because that's what limited resources we have here. And it's like Kate said, they're not open on the weekends. On Saturday and Sunday, you can't go to Helping Hands and get food. You can't go to the community kitchen, get a hot meal, have a seat somewhere in an air conditioned building. I've been out in the parks with some of my homeless clients, And I'm not a skinny guy. I sweat in a lot of places. But I can't imagine doing that 24-7. And I'm out there for 30 minutes an hour helping them, you know, or taking them somewhere. And I think about taking my homeless clients in my vehicle to go get food and thinking about The fact that, okay, well, the only air conditioning they're gonna get today is sitting in my tiny car while we go and get food for a little bit or get something from some, get some resource from somewhere. So just 15 seconds. They're people. Just treat them like you would want anybody else to be treated. That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Phil. Very still. How many? You still got more?

Brooke Sellers.

Brooke Sellers. So we got three more?

Well, a couple of them have already come up. So I don't know if they're gonna talk about something different or...

They've already been spoken? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Hi, good morning, Mayor, and good morning, City Council. My name is Brooke Sellers, and I am a volunteer and worker at Fresh Brewed Coffeehouse, and I am here to show support for the people in our community who access the resources provided there. FIRST, I WANT TO BE CLEAR THAT I WAS NOT PERSONALLY PRESENT FOR THE OCCURRENCES THAT HAPPENED OVER THE WEEKEND THAT I'M SURE BROUGHT, I DON'T KNOW IF I NEED TO BE THAT CLOSE TO THE MICROPHONE TO BE HONEST WITH YOU. I WASN'T THERE OVER THE WEEKEND. but I'm sure that's what brought many of us here. But what I can speak to is Fresh Brewed Coffeehouse and the work being done there and why I believe spaces like Fresh Brewed should be recognized as a valid local resource that fills in the gaps. I think part of that conversation needs to include what we are calling loitering when people are present because they are accessing services. When someone comes to Fresh Fruit for whatever the case may be, be it clothing, support, or just connection, or simply because they know it is a safe place to be, their presence has a purpose. Naturally, some of that presence extends into the parking lot, as it does in any other community resource, and we need to be careful that we are not creating an environment where people become afraid to access these resources. Our community needs more resources. It needs Fresh Brewed Coffeehouse. It needs churches, nonprofits, outreach programs, recovery organizations, and every other safe place, every sanctuary, every refuge. Fresh Brewed is a nonprofit, and when members of this community choose to give their time, money food clothing or other resources so that another member of their community can receive help i don't believe our response should be to find ways to restrict or create barriers to that help we should be asking how do we coordinate it These are our neighbors and they are members of Myrtle Beach too. They are locals. We already have people willing to help. We already have organizations willing to do the work and we have a community that desperately needs more resources. We should not be building more barriers between them. We should be building a bridge. Thank you. Thank you.

And if there are repeats, I'm inclined not to say, let's do the repeats.

After this one, a husband and wife, about the same thing.

Good morning again. Tim Poole, 12B Combat Engineer, 36th Engineering Group, Fort Benning, Georgia. Served in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, Mogadishu, East Africa. I'm the son of a two PhD holder from Duke University in North Carolina that taught at A&T University World Religion and Theology and was on scholarship committees with people like Maya Angelou, William Barber, the Reverend Nelson Johnson, Joe McNeil from the A&T Forum. That said, I've been homeless. When I came home, was sent home from Somalia to Quantico, Virginia for standing down to an illegal order and was put in prison. When I was finally absolved of that with the rest of my unit, turned loose into the streets of Quantico, Virginia with no ID, no money, nothing but the clothes on my back and found my way to Washington, D.C. I spent eight months there in DC, too ashamed to call home to ask for help. And I finally found help. Did it come from a church? No, it did not. Did it come from any government organization? No, it did not. It came from people like Kate Curran, small organization that helped me. I couldn't even get a bus ticket home because I didn't have an ID. Those people helped me get my social security card, my birth certificate, so that I could get an ID, find a job, get home to where I could get help, where I found very little help again. I'd like to ask you a question. How many of the people in this council right now, if you would by a show of hands, claim Christianity as a religion? We're not. Okay, I'm sure most of you do.

I appreciate the question, but.

For what you have not done for me, You've not done for my brothers. You've not done for me. Quit demonizing the people that are trying to fill in the gaps that you're not addressing. These people are trying to help people. If there were enough resources, as some people on this council want to state there are, then people like Kate wouldn't have to be doing what they're doing. My mother's dear friend and my friend, Ms. Maya Angelou, said, when people show you who they are, believe them the first time. And trust me, you know who you are. You've shown us and we believe you. This is wrong. And you know it's wrong. You're not arresting people in Chapin Park, you're waking them up off the bench and telling them to move along. You didn't give those people this option, that option here. You just showed up and you arrested them. You're not arresting people at the shepherd's table in Conway. They're not over there where there's just as many homeless people hanging out. They don't get arrested. Like the gentleman said, this is a ding on the record now and it makes it even harder for them to become functioning members of society. Kate is in there giving them a place to receive their mail. helping them get birth certificates, like those folks did me, so that they can get ID, so that they can become gainfully employed, and you somehow find that wrong. These people are gonna be here, whether Kate is or not. And you might as well get used to it. Another thing, my kid, who's since 16, has been going to punk rock shows at the coffee house. And when those shows are happening, those homeless people are inside in the air conditioning. Those kids aren't scared of those people. 15, 16, 17, 18 year old teenagers going to punk rock show. So you're gonna tell me they got more guts than y'all? They're not scared of them. So why are you? What the hell are y'all so scared of? If I was as scared of everything every time the wind blew as you people are, I couldn't exist.

Thanks, Jim. Come on, guys, please.

Jim and Maureen. Jim and Maureen.

Jim and Maureen. Is that the last on the list?

There's two more after this.

Oh, my. Okay. Okay.

Good morning. Thank you for your time. I appreciate that we're overrunning. My name is James Deamer. This is my wife Maureen. We own a second home at 205 82nd Avenue North. We also are renting in Pine Lakes right now because our house is undergoing a major renovation so we can retire here and make this our homestead in the next two years, which has been our dream for many, many years since my wife's family has been coming to this area for over 65 years. The issue at hand is the city council has directed the staff to find solutions to the golf cart parking problem because many residents who are golf cart owners feel they lost parking when the city recently started enforcing the existing ordinance that this allows parking on the grass at the public beach entrances. Question, why does this ordinance exist to begin with? Just look to your own website. It points to, it's there to maintain organized traffic flow. It's there to prevent landscape and property damage such as erosion and ruts in public areas. We keep paths, ways to the beach safe for all pedestrians. We keep open areas for emergency responders to respond to emergencies at the beach. And we maintain public right-of-way open spaces for neighborhood beautification and enjoyment. There's a lesson learned here, and it sounded like this came up in some of the earlier discussions, which is as a city council, you need to direct staff to consistently enforce ordinances that are on the books for them to be effective and have standing in the community if you don't have a problem like this. I'm gonna focus on 82nd Avenue. Your proposal is to move from, to put 35 designated golf cart spaces, the largest addition on any street, anywhere in the proposal, in a residential area. Do you believe a parking area that scale is appropriate at the end of an established residential street with unique characteristics? Before I go further, I'm going to actually provide you some alternative solutions, because I'm not just here to say no. I realize it's a problem. My ask is this, though. Please defer the proposed construction of golf cart parking within the Beach Drive neighborhood. particularly the 35 spaces on 82nd Avenue, until there's been a proper site-specific review that involve your planning and zoning staff expertise and other alternatives are assessed. I understand, as I had a conversation with your assistant city manager yesterday, that this is put together quickly at council's direction, and planning and zoning were not involved. Thus, it is highly likely there may be impacts and other risks that haven't been properly assessed. What's the root cause of the problem? It's explosive growth, particularly 8,000 homes in the Grand Dunes community. And we have failed to plan appropriately for the impacts that these types of PUD developments have on existing neighborhoods. The Grand Dunes actually has private parking on Dunes Boulevard, which is about a 750 foot walk to the beach. That is less than the distance from Ocean to Beach Boulevard on 82nd or any of the avenues up there. There's also shuttle service. This is part of their HOA. The reality is the developer and the HOA have not kept up with the level of service as number of new homes has been built. Not a single space has been added in seven years that my wife and I have been there. There's only about 100 spaces on their lot today. Now they're pushing the problem on to you and to me. I want to help. Solution one, have the Grand Dunes expand their lot. There's plenty of room. I was up there yesterday. You can get 200 more spaces on that lot if you do simple things like put lines on the spaces, give more pavement. Because what you have, even on other spots through the city on the grass, is you have random golf cart parking. So you only get a fraction of what can really go there. Put down lines where the golf carts can park. Okay, so this is my ask. And the city's assessment of what is currently on Beach Avenue is wrong. I'll show it to you. You cannot put 25 spaces at the end of 79th. They say that's there now. You can barely fit 15 golf courses and you're reconstructing 78th where it says there's 20 spaces and there's zero. I have pictures I'll show you. So please, I'm willing to work with you. I'll volunteer. My neighbors had all had to leave because they had other appointments. I have expertise in this area. Our son has a PhD in urban planning and is world renowned in multimodal transport. But don't put golf course traffic on our street where we have no sidewalks. That's how we walk to the beach. We have bikes, runners.

We'll be glad to talk with you and see what we can do. I don't remember 35 extra spaces on 82nd Avenue North, but we'll take a look at that again.

I have the presentation. I will do that to you. I've got it, too. And I will mail this to everyone.

I've got it, too, but do send us some notes. Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you very much. And Council.

Thank you. Don Adams?

Don or Dawn?

Don Adams.

Oh, Don Adams. Hey, Don.

Mayor, council members, thank you. Appreciate all the work that y'all do. Coming to you for, hang on one second.

This is the last one?

One more.

We're about out of time, so be quick.

I'll try to make it quick. The reason I'm coming to you today, I'm a lifelong resident, lived in Myrtle Beach, worked in Myrtle Beach, own property in Myrtle Beach, mainly on Broadway. I have some concerns I would like for council and the city to help us with. A couple of them is the... On Broadway, we have a problem with the drainage, water drainage coming through. The drains on Broadway are clogged. They're continuously getting clogged, mainly because of all the trees, and I'm not trying to be anti-tree, but some of those trees in there are way bigger than they need to be, and maybe not even the proper type of tree to be in that particular area. Some of the other issues is we have lighting issues on Broadway. It's kind of dark and kind of seedy at night. And we're trying to build that whole area up. I've been working with Jason Green, talking with him a lot on doing some stuff. And they've been having meetings. I've been participating with that. But we need to try to clean Broadway up a little bit. And we need to enforce rules. And this is going to kind of come back to what the other deals is with the homeless and stuff. We got a lot of nice benches on Broadway, but it's not being used by the people to come to the restaurants and arts and all that stuff. They're generally occupied by the homeless, if you will. Some of them creates absolutely no problem, very respectful and all that good stuff. And we got some of them just... They're out there, okay? And they definitely need mental help or whatever, but the resources that the city has been providing over there, police, fire, my particular area down on 5th and Broadway, they're there four or five times a day sometimes dealing with issues. and uh and we need if nothing but equal enforcement and i know what happened at city hall is kind of a bad light but we need help in city enforcement evenly throughout the city on some of those issues and i thank you very much john good to see you a retired middle beach firefighter yeah we've got a minute and a half if there's the last person john ward a minute and a half

That's it.

John Warren, Bay Point Apartments.

I just want to thank the city of Myrtle Beach for providing some wonderful police and fire and emergency services, keeping people like me safe, 67 years old, from people who want to destroy our community, who come here to have a beach bum criminal vacation. and all the people who want to portray them as wonderful members of our community when all they're here to do is to destroy stuff. I'm a bum, but I'm the kind of bum that I'm sort of a welfare king. I get my social security, I got some discount housing, I even get $24 in food stamps and a free government phone. I want to say thank you to all the taxpayers who are taking care of me. Now, that's the way to do a bum lifestyle. You try not to harm the community. You try to be appreciative for what you get because the United States and everyone in the United States are very generous. All they need to do is just accept the help, work on themselves. Instead of spending their days with vile language, vile behavior,

encouraging themselves to be criminals john they all steal okay thank you our time is up but thank you very much hey come on come on please please don't please don't please don't we've been we've been very nice today behave and again i'm i'm okay if you boo us but it's weird to boo the public right that's it for that communications from city boards and commission members communications from city council and city manager fox do you have anything this police chief uh community meeting tonight five o'clock at the convention center Ballroom C. Ballroom C at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. The four police chief candidates, the finalists will be there and you'll have a chance to meet and talk with them as well.

Mayor. Yes, ma'am. Several of us from city staff and council went up to Connecticut, specifically to Bridgeport for the grand opening of a development called the August, which is a development in a very blighted area, Bridgeport, of which Flowery and Collins and Ryan Civic Partners, who we have spoken with, they created a tremendous project specifically that included workforce housing and very high-end apartments. And I think we also were impressed not only with the level of the development, but the pride that community had in the establishment of that apartment complex and in the development, to help the development of that area specifically. and also getting the chance to see their amphitheater which is very similar to things that we've heard about that could be happening in the myrtle beach area so directly across from the apartment complex was the amphitheater that was great i closed my eyes and imagined i was sitting in myrtle beach five, 10 years from now.

Did you see the ocean?

No, but you can see the water. Oh, okay. It's definitely on the water, but just very well worth it. Spent a lot of time with Devin, specifically talking about redevelopment and Jason, Fox, and Michelle. So it was very good.

Great, thank you. Anybody else?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. With the... the concern about what happened over the weekend. I'm unclear on our ordinance as it relates, excuse me, relates to looting. So I'd like to be able to sit down with the city manager, acting police chief, whoever else is appropriate to get a clear understanding of what that is.

You said looting? No, loitering. Loitering, okay.

Okay. You can hear my voices. Loitering. Yeah. so i i'd like to be able to do that because i while we were talking uh one of my neighbors let me pull this up real quick sent me some highlighted stuff from chapter 14 14-85 that apparently addresses the issue and what should be done, what should not be done, that type of thing. I'm sure the manager and the attorney would be happy to do that. I'd like to be able to get a clarification on that.

I can't speak for you guys, but I expect that you'll say yes.

Anybody else?

Last call?

Motion to adjourn, please. So moved.

Second.

Second. All those in favor of adjournment, please say aye. Aye. Thank you very much for coming today.