Another South Carolina Small Business Bites The Dust

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While South Carolina’s “Republican” lawmakers blow billions of dollars on their badly broken government – and all manner of political pork – they continue shortchanging the citizens and small businesses which keep the Palmetto State’s economy going.

It’s a priority problem … and it’s growing more pronounced by the day.

Exhibit A: South Carolina’s worsening venue crisis, which is another shameful consequence of powerful lawyer-legislators controlling our court system. Soaring liability costs are killing small, independently owned mom and pop businesses – especially bars and restaurants which serve alcohol.

The problem? Broken tort laws …

In the Palmetto State, businesses can be forced to pay 100 percent of a verdict even if they are determined to be only one percent liable for the accident from whence the judgment sprung.

“Small businesses across the state are being forced to shutter their doors and close their businesses due to exorbitant insurance rates caused by the state’s joint and several liability laws,” a coalition of small business owners wrote earlier this month in a letter to state leaders.

They aren’t being hyperbolic, either, as just this week there was yet another small business casualty.

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“This is a post we have been dreading for quite some time now,” the owner of Palmetto Brothers Dispensary wrote on the business’ Facebook page. “June 22nd will be the last time you will be able to purchase your favorite beer and wine at Palmetto Brothers Dispensary.”

Based in downtown Laurens, S.C. – a city which needs as much homegrown economic development as it can muster – Palmetto Brothers made no bones about why it was being forced to shut down its primary revenue driver.

“While operating costs have increased across the board, the major contributing factor in stepping away at this time is the dramatic increase in the cost of liquor liability insurance,” owner Wes Meetze continued. “Our rates have gone up 325 percent since we opened our doors three years ago. We were holding out hope for a legislative fix this session, but that seems more and more unlikely by the day.”

According to Meetze, his company is “still shopping for an affordable liquor liability insurance option” – one which would enable it to transfer beer and wine operations to a different location.

“We aren’t giving up on that dream,” he wrote, although he added the future of his business was “uncertain at best.”

As previously reported, legislation introduced this year (S. 533) could have fixed this problem – but so-called “conservative” GOP leaders were too busy blowing every penny of new money coming into Columbia (while refusing to give back a $1.8 billion surplus they recently uncovered) to pass the bill.

Count on this media outlet to continue standing for the small businesses across the state which have been unfairly disadvantaged by the perpetual “priority problem” of the GOP supermajority S.C. General Assembly.

And to continue calling out the status quo uniparty …

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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