In the early hours of Thursday, May 15, North Myrtle Beach police arrested Alex Paragas, the 28-year-old manager of Sky Bar, after three nights of escalating decibel readings outside the Main Street venue — the last one clocking in at 102 decibels just before the arrest [WBTW, 2026]. Eleven days earlier, between 11:36 p.m. and 2:42 a.m. on a single Sunday night, officers arrested 17 young adults between the ages of 19 and 23, mostly on open-container charges. Two were charged with cocaine possession. Eight were under 21 [Myrtle Beach Online, 2026].
Two stories. Twenty-eight arrests across just over two weeks. And one question worth asking honestly: Is this enforcement responding to public safety needs, or is it being driven by a budget that needs to justify itself?
YESTERDAY’s VIRAL FIGHT IN NORTH MYRTLE BEACH
The Budget at a Glance
The FY2025 budget approved by City Council came in at $207.8 million — roughly million larger than the previous year and the biggest in the city’s history [MyHorryNews, 2024]. It included a 3-mil property tax increase, raising the millage rate from 45 to 48 mils, or about $12 more per year for every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value. Then-Mayor Marilyn Hatley framed the increase at the time as funding rising public safety costs.
The public safety line items are substantial. Police personnel costs jumped by more than $2 million [MyHorryNews, 2024]. Eight additional uniformed officers were added — bringing the total force to 78 — initially funded by a federal COPS grant for three years. Every officer received a $2,500 retention bonus. A new $627,893 line item was created for police training. The budget also allocated $10 million for a combined fire and police station serving the fast-growing Water Tower Road area, plus plans for a regional training facility.
That’s a meaningful expansion. The question is what’s driving it.
The Case That Spending Reflects Real Need
There’s a legitimate argument that the city is simply responding to a fast-growing population and busier tourist season. Full-time staff increased from 483 to 505 positions, including six fire and rescue workers and a new public safety administrator [MyHorryNews, 2024]. The Water Tower Road precinct is real infrastructure for a developing area. Training funds and retention bonuses respond to genuine labor-market pressure — police agencies across South Carolina have struggled with recruitment for years.
The federal COPS grant subsidizes most of the new officer hires for their first three years — federal dollars the city would have left on the table otherwise. And the 3-mil tax increase keeps North Myrtle Beach among the lowest-taxed municipalities in Horry County, well below Myrtle Beach’s 78.9 mils, Conway’s roughly 98 mils, and Loris’s roughly 108 mils [MyrtleBeachSC, 2026].
So the city isn’t running a uniquely expensive operation. But that doesn’t fully resolve the underlying question.
The Case for Skepticism
When a city expands its police force, builds new training facilities, and creates a $627,893 training fund, the institutional pressure to use that capacity tends to grow. Bigger budgets create bigger expectations. New officers need patrol assignments. New training facilities need throughput. None of this is automatically nefarious, but it changes the math.
The Sky Bar arrest and the 17-person sweep matter in that context. North Myrtle Beach expanded its noise ordinance enforcement, passed a new nuisance party ordinance in early 2026 [WMBF, 2026], and is producing a steady stream of headline-generating arrests. Citations and fines also generate revenue. Whether that’s good policing or an expanding definition of what gets policed depends on perspective.
For comparison, Myrtle Beach dedicates more than 15% of its $330 million budget — about $50.4 million — to policing, with 371 employees. Notably, “Part I” crimes in Myrtle Beach have dropped by more than 40% since 2018, even as the department has grown [WBTW, 2024]. That raises a useful question: at what point does additional police spending stop producing additional safety, and start producing additional enforcement of lower-priority violations?
What’s Coming in FY2026
The full FY2026 budget hasn’t been released, but early signals from city staff suggest the public safety side is continuing to grow. That’s worth flagging before the formal budget rolls out.
Several things deserve attention. First: when the COPS grant subsidy for the eight new FY2025 officers expires, the full salary cost shifts onto local taxpayers — an obligation not fully reflected in current millage. Second: capital projects like the Water Tower Road station create ongoing operational costs that persist long after construction ends. Third: residents should watch whether new spending is paired with measurable goals — response times, calls for service, crime trends — or simply framed as keeping pace with growth.
City manager Ryan Fabbri has framed rising costs as keeping pace with inflation [MyrtleBeachSC, 2026]. That framing is honest as far as it goes, but doesn’t answer whether efficiency measures or contract renegotiations were seriously explored before reaching back into property tax revenue.
Where That Leaves Residents
This isn’t a story about a corrupt government or a runaway police department. It’s about the ordinary mechanics of municipal growth — where genuine needs, grants, and institutional momentum combine to produce decisions that may not match what residents would choose if asked directly.
The practical question isn’t whether police should exist or whether officers deserve fair pay — both are obvious. It’s whether the city is being honest about the long-term cost trajectory, whether grant-subsidized hires create obligations residents haven’t signed up for, and whether the arrests piling up on Main Street reflect safer streets or simply more enforcement. With FY2026 spending already trending upward but the full budget still pending, residents have a narrow window to engage before decisions are locked in.
Further Reading
- WBTW: Manager of Sky Bar arrested for allegedly violating noise ordinance
- Myrtle Beach Online: Over a dozen arrested in North Myrtle Beach
- MyHorryNews: North Myrtle Beach approves largest budget in city’s history
- City of North Myrtle Beach: FY2026 Budget Retreat Document
- WMBF: NMB passes ordinance to crack down on nuisance parties
- WBTW: Myrtle Beach continues spending millions for policing; violent crime rates dropping
- MyrtleBeachSC: North Myrtle Beach Tax Increase: $225/Year Budget Proposal
