Face it, motorcylists: The old MB is gone

Today's editorial explains why the new Myrtle Beach May rallies regulations are so painful for motorcyclists:

"This isn't about the rallies. This is about the freedoms we have. As soon as you stop fighting for your freedoms, you lose them."

- William O'Day, motorcycle plaintiff

A circuit judge this week refused to enjoin the city of Myrtle Beach from enforcing two motorcycle regulatory ordinances until a legal challenge can be heard. The judge's ruling, however, could presage even greater disappointment for the local plaintiffs, Carol and William O'Day. Chances seem good that the courts will find the city's restriction on motorcycle noise and noncriminal requirement that motorcyclists wear helmets a valid use of home-rule authority.

To the O'Days and the thousands of local and out-of-town motorcycle enthusiasts who support them, the previous sentences no doubt read like bureaucratic gobbledegook. To them, this issue is simple: The city's attempt to regulate motorcyclists' behavior is an assault on freedom.

To them, it's irrelevant that many of their present and former home states require motorcyclists to wear helmets and to muffle the noise that emanates from motorcycle tailpipes. For decades, Myrtle Beach has been the place they could come to rides their bikes as they saw fit - locks flowing in the breeze and pipes racking sonorously in the gentle May sunshine. Now Mayor John Rhodes and the City Council have taken that away from them - and gotten away with it so far.

We get it: To the biker community, this represents a huge loss.

Sure, other local venues, most notably unincorporated Horry County and the city of North Myrtle Beach, have remained conspicuously biker friendly. But Myrtle Beach is - was - the crown jewel in the navel of the May biker experience.

Now that the jewel has been plucked away, bikers can go nowhere but the courts to seek comfort. All the city really wants is for them to compromise: to stay not quite so long, to ride less noisily while they're here, to protect themselves against head injuries (which exact a local public-safety cost) and to be more respectful of the year-round populace.

That's really not so much to ask. But the O'Days and the thousands for whom they speak cannot accept that. They want Myrtle Beach to remain the limited-rules playground of old, when they could pretty much do what they wanted as long as they kept spending money. The money was - and is - important.

But thanks to the process of creative destruction that dogs all communities - mutations that revolutionize the community's economic structure from within - the Myrtle Beach they thought they knew has become a different place. The council's anti-rallies initiative of 2008 was about much more than silencing residents sick of May noise and the traffic. The new regime of ordinances is also about self-image. Myrtle Beach still welcomes visitors with money to spend, but biker boisterousness beyond a shrinking norm is no longer acceptable.

We would be the last to urge the O'Days and those for whom they speak to give their lawsuit up. It's their constitutional right to seek redress in the courts. But their effort seems destined only to provide court confirmation that the city was right to express this new rallies reality in its code of ordinances.

Comments?

A circuit judge this week refused to enjoin the city of Myrtle Beach from enforcing two motorcycle regulatory ordinances until a legal challenge can be heard. The judge's ruling, however, could presage even greater disappointment for the local plaintiffs, Carol and William O'Day. Chances seem good that the courts will find the city's restriction on motorcycle noise and noncriminal requirement that motorcyclists wear helmets a valid use of home-rule authority.

To the O'Days and the thousands of local and out-of-town motorcycle enthusiasts who support them, the previous sentences no doubt read like bureaucratic gobbledegook. To them, this issue is simple: The city's attempt to regulate motorcyclists' behavior is an assault on freedom.

To them, it's irrelevant that many of their present and former home states require motorcyclists to wear helmets and to muffle the noise that emanates from motorcycle tailpipes. For decades, Myrtle Beach has been the place they could come to rides their bikes as they saw fit - locks flowing in the breeze and pipes racking sonorously in the gentle May sunshine. Now Mayor John Rhodes and the City Council have taken that away from them - and gotten away with it so far.

We get it: To the biker community, this represents a huge loss.

Sure, other local venues, most notably unincorporated Horry County and the city of North Myrtle Beach, have remained conspicuously biker friendly. But Myrtle Beach is - was - the crown jewel in the navel of the May biker experience.

Now that the jewel has been plucked away, bikers can go nowhere but the courts to seek comfort. All the city really wants is for them to compromise: to stay not quite so long, to ride less noisily while they're here, to protect themselves against head injuries (which exact a local public-safety cost) and to be more respectful of the year-round populace.

That's really not so much to ask. But the O'Days and the thousands for whom they speak cannot accept that. They want Myrtle Beach to remain the limited-rules playground of old, when they could pretty much do what they wanted as long as they kept spending money. The money was - and is - important.

But thanks to the process of creative destruction that dogs all communities - mutations that revolutionize the community's economic structure from within - the Myrtle Beach they thought they knew has become a different place. The council's anti-rallies initiative of 2008 was about much more than silencing residents sick of May noise and the traffic. The new regime of ordinances is also about self-image. Myrtle Beach still welcomes visitors with money to spend, but biker boisterousness beyond a shrinking norm is no longer acceptable.

We would be the last to urge the O'Days and those for whom they speak to give their lawsuit up. It's their constitutional right to seek redress in the courts. But their effort seems destined only to provide court confirmation that the city was right to express this new rallies reality in its code of ordinances.

Comments?