A soft-serve window on Freewoods Road has become the latest flashpoint in a question Horry County residents keep running into: when the county doesn’t enforce its own zoning code until a neighbor picks up the phone, who pays the price — and is that fair?
For Gary and Kari Ward, the answer has meant an anonymous complaint, a compliance ultimatum, and now a rezoning fight that will decide whether their family business survives.
A Business Built on a County-Issued License
The Wards opened Ward’s Boat Storage and Ward’s Soft Serve at 9032 Freewoods Road in 2024, and the property has carried BO1 Boating/Marine Commercial zoning the entire time [NewsBreak, 2026]. When the couple applied for their business license, Gary Ward says the paperwork spelled out exactly what they intended to sell: boat storage, bait, tackle, snacks, drinks, ice and ice cream, plus boat rentals [WBTW News13, 2026]. The county issued the license, and the Wards operated openly under it for roughly two years.
That changed in July, when an anonymous complaint alleged the Wards were storing RVs on the property and selling ice cream in violation of zoning rules [WBTW News13, 2026]. Ward doesn’t dispute the RV storage was out of compliance. What frustrates him is that the ice cream operation — the piece the county is now treating as the bigger problem — was on the license from day one [WBTW News13, 2026].
That distinction matters. If a use was disclosed, approved and licensed by the county, and the county only revisits it after an outside complaint rather than through its own inspection process, the burden of that gap falls entirely on the business owner — not on the department that issued the approval in the first place. That’s the accountability question hanging over this case.
An Offer to Comply, and a Rezoning Ultimatum
Once notified of the problem, Ward said he offered an immediate fix: remove the RVs and campers, restrict outdoor storage to boats and watercraft, and keep the ice cream window running — an operation comparable to what a marina store or bait-and-tackle shop routinely offers. The county’s own BO1 provisions list boat storage as a conditional use and permit certain retail activity within the district, which is why the Wards believed a narrower compliance fix, not a full rezoning, was the reasonable remedy.
Instead, the county directed the Wards toward a different path: obtain new zoning or risk losing the ability to operate the ice cream shop at all. After advisement, the Wards applied for RE4 zoning, a classification that allows retail or service businesses requiring outdoor storage areas [WBTW News13, 2026].
Why the Greater Burgess Community Association Says No
That’s where the Greater Burgess Community Association (GBCA) enters the picture. When Ward sought the association’s backing for the RE4 application, he says he was told the group supported the business but not the rezoning, because of what could be built there down the road if the property changes hands [WBTW News13, 2026]. Ward pushed back on that logic directly: “We will never leave this location. This is never going to be for sale,” he told News13, arguing the family’s roots make the worst-case scenario the association fears unrealistic [WBTW News13, 2026].
The GBCA describes itself as an organization that reviews rezoning and variance requests and feeds resident concerns back to county officials and elected leaders — a role it has held in the Burgess community for years. That mission is legitimate. But opposing a rezoning without offering the Wards an alternative path to keep their existing operation intact leaves a family business caught between two government-adjacent processes it didn’t create: an enforcement gap on one side, and a civic association’s veto power on the other.
A Complaint With No Name Attached
Ward has also been publicly vocal against a proposed development at Bay and Freewoods roads, citing an existing stormwater “choke point” the county is aware of. He believes the anonymous complaint against his business followed that advocacy, though the identity and motive of the complainant remain unconfirmed [NewsBreak, 2026]. Nothing has been proven about who filed it or why — but the timing, paired with an enforcement action that arrived two years into otherwise unchallenged operation, is the kind of coincidence that invites scrutiny rather than dismisses it.
What Happens Next
The Horry County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the RE4 rezoning request on September 3, and Ward says he has county councilman Cam Crawford’s support, though that alone doesn’t guarantee an outcome [WBTW News13, 2026]. Both Horry County Planning and Zoning and county officials did not respond to News13’s request for comment on the case [WBTW News13, 2026].
For Burgess-area residents, the meeting is the one venue where this gets decided in the open — not through anonymous complaints or closed-comment social media posts, but on the record. Ward’s position has been consistent throughout: he isn’t asking to skip the rules, only for a reasonable path to keep a family business running under the license the county itself approved.
Further Reading
- “Horry County business asks for community support during re-zoning battle,” WBTW News13
- NewsBreak coverage, “After two years slinging soft serve…”
- Horry County Zoning Ordinance (Appendix B, updated Jan. 7, 2026)
- Horry County Planning and Zoning Department
- Greater Burgess Community Association
- Ward’s Soft Serve & Storage on Facebook
