For showing great courage in standing up to the weight of Myrtle Beach City Government, MyrtleBeachSC news proclaims Saturday, August 3rd as Sachin and Chandrakant Patel day. Our news site recognizes these two merchants as Myrtle Beach Citizens of the year 2019.
WHY WOULD THE CITY HARRASS A PRIVATE BUSINESS OWNER? SCROLL TO BOTTOM OF PAGE
After a season of weaponizing the Myrtle Beach police department to drive off and eliminate merchants from the Myrtle Beach Superblock, Myrtle Beach city government attempted to use the same police department to shut down one local motel. Myrtle Beach City Government labeled the Lancer Motel as a nuisance property and set in motion a process to close the motel in 30 days.
NUISANCE PROPERTY OR NUISANCE CITY & NUISANCE GOVERNMENT?
The streets of Myrtle Beach are filled with 1,300 homeless, consisting of drug addicted vagrants and prostitutes. Los Angeles has 60,000 homeless with a population of 4 million. However, Myrtle Beach has a greater percentage of homeless population than the city of Los Angeles.
The city has done little to nothing to alleviate those ongoing issues. Sachin and Chandrakant Patel noted problems happening on the streets around their motel and had motel staff call police.
As WMBFnews reports: A Myrtle Beach motel that the city and police have called a public nuisance received a big win in court.
Back in February, the city of Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock served a public nuisance notice to the Lancer Motel on North Kings Highway, which called for the owners to close it within 30 days.
Police said during the course of a year, there were more than 450 calls and complaints of criminal activity at the hotel, such as drugs, prostitution and fighting.
A special hearing officer was brought in, and a written order on April 3 from the special hearing officer declared the property a nuisance offending public decency, peace and order.
The owners of the Lancer Motel, Chandrakant Patel and his son Sanchin Patel, appealed that decision. They said in court filings that all, if not most, of the evidence submitted during a hearing was based on 911 calls made in the general area and not at the motel itself. They said it was the responsibility of the city and not the business.
Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Culbertson filed an order on July 26 saying the, “Hearing Officer appointed by City Manager did not have jurisdiction to determine existence and abatement of alleged public nuisance.”
It also calls on the motel’s attorney, Russell Long, to prepare a formal order in the case.
The Horry County public index also labels the case as dismissed.
WHY IS THE CITY DOING THIS?
Rather than seeing himself as a Myrtle Beach City Manager charged with fixing sewer infrastructure, maintaining city streets, dealing with vagrants, fixing city related beach bacteria issues, and policing crime, John Pedersen privately views himself as a bureaucratic, “big government” entrepreneur.
Collaborating with his team on the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation (DRC), the group is rapidly forcing a government engineered downtown city overhaul. The Downtown Redevelopment Corporation master-plan has Highway 501 running as below in the next few years.
Pedersen sits on the board of the DRC. The DRC is a private corporation owned by the City of Myrtle Beach.
Once the road becomes a straight entry, the value of the Lancer Motel will likely triple at minimum.
The city, working through the DRC, has shown a documented pattern of using varied measures to ensure that “city-approved“, preferred, establishment, insider investors lock in key real estate locations in prime spots at discount prices. The Lancer Motel will soon become the pinnacle of prime locations.
These measures have included police harassment, zoning changes, city service harassment, along with special consideration for DRC related establishment locals.
We site the following examples:
EMINENT DOMAIN AT SUPER BLOCK: https://www.wmbfnews.com/story/37492379/myrtle-beach-city-council-to-discuss-eminent-domain-and-the-superblock-at-tuesdays-meeting/
MERCHANTS ON OCEAN BOULEVARD FACE SPECIAL ZONING RESTRICTIONS LIMITING WHAT THEY CAN SELL: https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/article216654595.html
PREFERRED DRC – RELATED SECRET OWNER GROUP GETS SPECIAL ZONING EXCEPTION AND FEDERAL TAX DOLLARS TO BUILD NEW PRIVATE AMUSEMENT: https://myrtlebeachsc.com/confidential-re-zoning-project-in-myrtle-beach-opportunity-zone/
LAWSUITS FILED
Multiple lawsuits, by various merchants, have been filed. The city’s legal reprimand in this case could set a precedent for future legal findings.