13 May 2009

Myrtle Beach Hates Bikers...what???

Well hey there everybody! I am back from my little jaunt to Myrtle Beach for the Spring Rally, aka Bike Week. If you read my last post, you know I was going with my best friend Traveller, aka Iron Horse Cowboy. I will tell you my trip was fantastic! Last Thursday I headed out on my Harley and pointed it east towards Lexington, SC. After about 9 hours on I-20 (and a little rain in Alabama) I was in Lexington, chilling at Traveller's house with a cold beer.
Friday morning we headed out from his house in Lexington; he on a Road King and me on my Geezer Glide, heading for or hotel in North Myrtle Beach. If any of you are bikers, you already know that the city council of Myrtle Beach passed 14 new ordinances in an effort to stop the Spring Rally. Of course, what would you expect from a mayor who once announced publicly that he wanted to"nudge" a biker with his car because of the biker's t-shirt.
Once at the hotel we decided to ride around and check out the goings on in the various places. One thing I was sure proud to see was the organizers handed out a brochure with a map outlining all the events and the city limits of Myrtle Beach. You see, Myrtle Beach hates bikers so much they passed very strict ordinances to deter us from coming. A lot of bikers were there but from what I was being told by the locals, attendance was significantly less than the year before.
So, for three days Traveller and I rode to various biker bars with names like Suck, Bang, Blow and the Beaver Bar to check out the bikes, babes and beer. We had a wild time that we enjoyed immensely!
On Friday night we ate at the Hooter's in North Myrtle Beach, where a waitress told us the whole brouha was not about our Spring Rally but about another group that holds their "Black Bike Week" shortly after Spring Rally Bike Week. She told us the tale of a group coming in to the restaurant last year running a tab of about $200 and walking out on the tab. She was held responsible for it. Now I am not picking on anybody and I am certainly not a racist by any means but in my time in Myrtle Beach I noticed that there were no fights, no races on public streets, nobody walked out on their tabs, nobody got shot, nobody drank to the point of puking and everybody generally had a good time and behaved.
I am not accusing anybody but I have to ask this question. If the majority of problems the Myrtle Beach community complains about are occurring only during "Black Bike Week", why is it racist to ask them not to come to Myrtle Beach anymore? Why is it when this group gets together there is almost always a shooting, there is rampant shoplifting, drag racing on the streets, people are walking out on their tabs in restaurants and bars and people are driving off from the gas stations without paying? How is it possible that the NAACP and the ACLU are able to sue a city for racial discrimination when it is the very group they are defending causing these problems?
Is there anybody out there that can honestly answer this question without crying "racism"? Anybody? I am all ears waiting for your answer.

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