Sunday’s editorial takes a look at Horry County’s
proposed ordinances regulating adult businesses (including a quick box with
highlights of the proposed rules at the bottom of the editorial):
How serious is Horry County Council
about cracking down on adult businesses? They had not one, not two, but three
lawyers in attendance ready to speak on the issue at Thursday’s meeting of
their Infrastructure and Regulation committee. One – lawyer Scott Bergthold of adultbusinesslaw.com – was even
flown in from his home office in Chattanooga,
Tenn., to help draft the county’s
proposed ordinances and brief council members.
In other words, this isn’t simply a
fleeting interest for Horry
County leaders.
Sunday’s first editorial was cribbed
in part from one that ran 15 years ago:
Ready for a busy few weeks?
May is just around the corner, and it
brings with it a slew of events and visitors. How the events play out and our
reaction to them could determine not just their individual success, but our
reputation as a tourist destination and the repeat business of the hundreds of
thousands who will grace our shores this coming month.
Wednesday’s editorial celebrates the
completion of the North
Myrtle Beach Historical
Museum:
Wampee School
alumni from the 1940s through the ’70s returned to the area for a reunion in
March and liked what they saw in a preview tour of the new North Myrtle Beach
Area Historical
Museum. Ruth Anne Ellis,
a member of the museum board of directors, says her Wampee classmates talked
about items they intended to send to the museum when they returned home.
Sunday’s editorial urges people to
think now about how to prevent or deal with the next wildfire:
If you live in Carolina Forest
and your community doesn’t already have a fire prevention plan, you should be
asking yourself about now: Why not?
The tragedy we witnessed last week at
Windsor Green, in which 26 buildings were reduced to ash and rubble in hours,
should be a wake-up call for residents.
Friday’s editorial is a wrap-up of
what’s working well when it comes to open government. It includes plenty of
links, so if you’ve ever wondered where to find some of this info, it could be
worth browsing just for those:
We’re nearing the end of another
Sunshine Week, when media outlets across the nation celebrate open government
and advocate for more transparency in the halls of power. In past years we’ve
used the occasion to call for a variety of reforms, including more robust
freedom of information laws in our state, fewer executive sessions at local
governmental bodies, better monitoring of those secret meetings and more basic
training for public employees on the state’s public access laws. Those concerns
haven’t changed.
But while there are still plenty of
issues to address across our state and region – and we will continue to point
them out – for today at least we choose to see the glass as half full, and we’ll
instead celebrate some successes of local institutions. There have been
achievements in public access and open government here in recent years and we
honor them to spread the worthy ideas and practices to other local governments
and agencies.
Thursday’s first editorial is a
helpful PSA as we near the beginning of tourist season:
Stay on the balconies, folks.
With winter nearly in our rearview
mirror, tourist season is approaching once more. Restaurants and mini golf
courses are reopening, businesses are putting the finishing touches on new
looks, and hotels are ready to welcome the first waves of guests to our shore.
With that influx comes the likelihood that visitors will be tumbling again off
the balconies of those hotels. It’s an unfortunate and dangerous annual trend
we see year after year.
Friday’s second editorial explains
why local folks should be paying attention to the ongoing debate over raising
the minimum wage:
When the president unveiled his plan
to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour during his State of the
Union address earlier this month, we sat up and paid attention. After all, the Myrtle Beach metro area,
with its emphasis on tourism and hospitality industries, consistently ranks
right at the bottom of the nation when it comes to hourly and annual earnings
for local workers.
The most impressive part of the North
Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce’s five-year growth plan is not the plan to
diversify the North Strand economy or the push to improve marketing of North Myrtle Beach. It’s not even the focus on
sustainable development or its admirable commitment to financial
accountability.
Kudos to Myrtle
Beach leaders for moving this week to bring the city’s ordinance
governing the sale of laser pointers in line with the rule that Horry County
is considering. Too many rules on the Grand Strand differ by municipality and
city boundaries, an issue that has gotten better in recent years but which
continues to vex residents, visitors and businesses.
Friday’s second editorial applauds Horry County
for moving forward with its own ban on selling lasers to minors while we wait
for the state to act:
Buy your lasers while you still can.
Or, more preferably, don’t.
After hearing in mid-November from
state legislators that it could be a year or more before the state acts on the
problem of fools shining the lights at aircraft, Horry County Council restarted
the process of putting its own ordinance in place to ban the sale of the
pernicious devices to minors. County Councilman Marion
Foxworth said Thursday he expects a final rule to be in place shortly after the
new year.
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