The city of North Myrtle Beach held another public forum Thursday night to inform people about a proposal to add an additional one percent sales tax.
If adopted, the tax would be used to market North Myrtle Beach around the state and country, similar to the tax Myrtle Beach adopted last year.
Tuesday night, a similar forum was held, and many residents said they're opposed to the tax hike.
One year later, some business owners in Myrtle Beach still resent the tax, which in recently announced numbers brought in more money than expected.
As North Myrtle Beach considers implementing the one-cent on the dollar sales tax, they might be able to look next door to Myrtle to gauge the potential impact of such a tax levy.
"There was a definite bump in Myrtle Beach the second week in July of last year after they started their marketing campaign," said Gary Loftus, Director of Coastal Carolina University's BB&T Center for Economic and Community Development.
Loftus continued, "Now, is it exactly attributable to (the marketing from the sales tax money)? We can't say for sure, but it sure didn't hurt, and the fact of the matter is the occupancy bump is there."
Loftus says he does not support or oppose the tax. His responsibilities include analyzing the potential impact of the tax, which he laid out Thursday night for North Myrtle Beach residents.
"Absolutely no," exclaimed Pat Granger, a North Myrtle Beach resident who adamantly opposes the tax. "Let the business pay their own way," she continued. "Why should we pay for somebody else to make money?"
But some business owners in Myrtle Beach, who have lived with the higher sales tax for a year now, say they're not really making money as a result of the tax.
"We went from five-percent to nine-percent in a very short period of time," recalled Laura Allison, owner and operator or Surf City in Myrtle Beach. "I think that hurt a lot of people and me being a Myrtle Beach city resident, I saw it when I went shopping. So, I know my customers saw it when they came shopping with me... I can't see where I got any more tourists in my store by having that one-percent (tax)."
As Loftus pointed out, and as many Myrtle Beach business owners say, there did seem to be more tourists on the Grand Strand this year.
But one business owner stressed that, while it could have been the marketing from the tax that helped boost turnout, it could have also been lower fuel prices, or a slightly better economic outlook than last year, or even the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - which may have caused tourists to come to the Grand Strand instead of the Gulf region, or it could have been a combination of all of those things.
For more information on the potential tax in North Myrtle Beach, click here.
