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.
Friday’s editorial is a decent
reminder as we get closer to our peak beach/outdoor season:
The phrases should go without saying:
The beach is not your ashtray. Litter is everybody’s business. The river is not
a garbage disposal. Trash goes in the trash can.
And yet we must say them. And say
them again. And apparently say them again. As The Sun News reported on Tuesday,
volunteers with the Ocean Conservancy picked up nearly 10 tons of garbage from South Carolina’s beaches
back in September. (They picked up more than 200 tons in North Carolina.) Last month, more than 200
big-hearted folks collected more than 4 tons of trash from the waterways around
Murrells Inlet.
Tuesday’s editorial hopes we’re one of the last to get the
new traffic signal the state DOT is rolling out:
Imagine
the following:
You pull up to the traffic
light, ready to turn left across the highway. The light is red, so you wait
patiently. At last, the cross traffic stops and the lights change. But instead
of a familiar green arrow, red arrow or solid green light, you’re presented
with a flashing yellow arrow. What to do? This wasn’t in driver’s ed, was it?
Oncoming traffic is still coming. But there’s also a line of impatient drivers
building behind you. Should you turn? Wait for another signal? Just push your
way through traffic?
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.
Friday’s first editorial wishes Coast
RTA the best as they try to get an airport shuttle service up and running:
Our hat’s off to Coast RTA General
Manager Myers Rollins. Rather than focus on the loss of the regional bus
service’s $629,000 contract with Coastal
Carolina University
as a problem, he looked upon it as an opportunity to try something new.
Thursday’s second editorial tries to
take a little more positive look at “Welcome to Myrtle Manor.”
City leaders, tourism promoters and
The Sun News readers have all had their say on “Welcome to Myrtle Manor,” the
distorted reality show that purports to show daily life in a local trailer
park. We don’t have much to add to the criticism, which has been nearly
universally negative. Like others, we watched, we cringed, we wondered why
anybody in their right mind would really want to be on a reality TV show. But
let us for a moment offer just a few thoughts in defense of “Myrtle Manor.”
Speaking of local history, we were
dismayed to learn that the Gullah O’oman shop and museum run by Vermelle “Bunny”
Rodrigues’ and her husband Andrew had closed recently, after nearly 15 years of
educating locals and visitors alike about the rich Gullah Geechee culture and
heritage our area is steeped in.
The Rodrigueses have said they hope
to reopen in a different location after losing their lease in Pawleys Island,
and we certainly hope they do so. The couple’s stories, artifacts and passion
for the Gullah Geechee culture have been a vital part of the effort to keep the
area’s past alive, and it would be more than unfortunate to lose those links,
especially just as the long-planned Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor ramps
up its efforts to highlight the unique African-American sea island culture.
Yes, reports like the most recent
ones that cover promotional efforts for last summer provide sometimes
interesting details of how the city’s tourism sales tax is being spent. We can
learn about the more than $55,000 spent to build a 15-ton sand sculpture of
President Obama during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last year. Or the $85,000 that went
to golfer Dustin Johnson for his services as a spokesman.
Sunday’s editorial urges lawmakers to
act sooner rather than later to address our state’s crumbling infrastructure:
South
Carolina’s roads are crumbling beneath us, and ignoring the problem
will not make it go away. Action is needed soon -- this year, this month --
because the cost to fix our roads rises with every day that passes. And it will
mean tough decisions that require substantially more funding, not just
leftovers and scraps that are found here and there.
Not convinced? Read through the report
on South Carolina’s road system put together for the state and issued in
December by a diverse group of transportation experts. It’s only 13 pages long,
but it sets out in stark detail the enormous challenges facing our state and
the almost total lack of solutions in the works to meet those challenges.
Friday’s editorial praises the recent
move by Horry County to limit laser pointer sales, but
points out there are still some gaps when it comes to actually enforcing the new
rules:
Horry County’s move Tuesday to limit
laser sales in the county is a strong step toward ending the inane and
dangerous fad we saw last year of shining the lights at incoming aircraft. Even
better is the concurrent action by Myrtle Beach
and Surfside Beach to work toward adopting identical
ordinances so that buyers need not simply drive into the city to make a
purchase. But the proof will be in the pudding. Will the new rules actually
make a dent in the profusion of laser strikes – more than 70 – that we saw last
summer?
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