Boycott Charleston?

The carriage industry in Charleston has been nothing if not contentious since the early 1980s. In the interest of transparency (what a concept!), I should note that I am one of the original carriage drivers for both Palmetto Carriage Works and Old Towne.
Things were pretty rough and tumble when I first wielded a whip at the foot of Meeting Street in 1978. The late Keith Marshall and I used to have “bourbon days.” One of us would stop at the Tavern liquor store and get a quart of bourbon which we would sip all day. The ratio of liquor to water was about 10 to one so we never got drunk, but that last tour was a doozy.
I mention that simply because the statute of limitations has long since passed.
One early evening in October that year, I was down on the Battery with another driver who is today president of one of the largest carriage companies. He challenged me to race back to the barn on State Street. We took off from Meeting, and shades of Ben Hur, raced neck and neck up the street. I recall taking a short cut the wrong way down St. Michael’s Alley.
I don’t remember who won. I do know that were we to pull that stunt today, there would be a SWAT team waiting for us.
I mention all of this simply because I have mucked more than one stall, I have driven a carriage in a tornado, I have seen tourists do all measure of things that I can’t mention in this space.
There are a number of different sides to this issue.
Yesterday, Elizabeth sent me a piece on the carriages. When I posted it, I didn’t make it clear that it was her work. My bad. I am intrigued by the different responses we got, though.
A resident of Charleston since the Proprietors ruled, Priestley Coker wrote:
“As a lifelong resident (67 years) of the historic district I have watched the horse carriages go from an occasional anachronism to widespread nusiance. It would not be so bad if the drivers would pull over but now they practically refuse. Recently I had to follow one from Broad and Meeting westward on Broad and watch while the driver refused to pull over in two empty parking spaces in front of the court house only to block traffic longer while turning south at Broad and King. I hollered to a cop across the street to do something about it and he told me that the driver was ‘just doing his job’.

“Compounding the problem is the city and general court system. To file an action one has to drop what he is doing and spend untold hours going to court to testify against them. But the carriage operators have learned the system by getting attorneys who know to pick West Ashley jurors who for the most part hate the historic district and refuse to convict the carriage drivers of anything.

“To compound it further I know of two downtown people who did exactly this 3 or 4 years ago only to lose the case and then have the carriage company attorney sue them personally for the legal fees. Talk about a stacked system! What is worse Mayor Riley is on the carriage operators side in these matters. No wonder so many of the real Charlestonians are fleeing downtown only to be replaced by rich people from off who do not live there. Talk about a dead historic district at times of the year like July and January and many other months.”
This goes back to the community v. commodity argument on which I keep harping. Charleston has morphed into Rileyworld. The carriage industry is one of the most heavily taxed sectors of the local economy. As long as that’s the case, rest assured that the gentle clop of hoof beats will echo through the streets pungent with the stringent smell of boiled horse urine (ahhh… August in Charleston).
I actually have stumbled onto a perfect solution, one that enrages everyone. If a carriage is blocking you, simply turn on Rush Limbaugh full blast, roll your windows down and follow the carriage as closely as you can. It works. Really.
Kwadjo Campbell’s reaction to those who complain about the treatment of the animals and indeed, the very presence of carriages was “Give me a break. Yes the horses should be treated fairly, but the carriages are legitimate and here to stay. If you don’t like it, move to West Ashley, or James Island.”
Don responds: ”Kwadjo, what happened to your revulsion for Joe’s “Disneyfication”? Hoppin John (John Martin Taylor) eloquently recalls (as does David) recalls the legitimately historical horse drawn carts vending “swimpees” and vegetables from John’s Island that have been purged from Charleston and made a yuppie outing on Saturday mornings on Marion Square… (Almost forgot the idea was nabbed from John Wesley United Methodist in Wes’ Ashcan providing space for a few black John’s Island farmers to market their crops).
“Yes the horses are another licentious bit of Charleston and a tax, er… revenue source is difficult to excise and is, perhaps South of Broad’s cross to bear for financing the sinking peninsula… soaking Daniel, James and John’s islands and West Ashley will only go so far and yuppies cajoled into regentrification efforts on the East Side (and I expect that Starbucks is coming) need to get their feet on the ground while the displaced don’t have it spend on property taxes.”
As for the treatment of the animals, one would have to be an absolute idiot to mistreat the very beings upon which he or she garners their source of revenue. That’s not to say there aren’t any for obviously there are. I will say that in some deep background conversations I had with those in the carriage industry that there were no surprises in the report that came out.
That said, to coin a phrase, it would be ridiculous to close the barn door, etc. The city government has made so much money off the tour tax of 50 cents a head that they have hired a full time police officer (with a gun and everything… See here, Farrow, drop that crepe myrtle or I’ll shoot) to enforce the tax ordinance.
As an aside, I am mortified at the absolute crap people are being fed by guides who have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. I had occasion to speak with a couple from Philadelphia (now Atlanta) who had taken a ghost tour the night before.
I started the first regularly scheduled ghost tour almost 20 years ago. I did it pretty much by myself for about five years. When I got out in 1999, there were 17 ghost tours. I have no idea how many there are now.
Talk about seagulls fighting over a mullet.
The three of us were standing by the Congregational Church on Meeting. The woman told me that they had taken the Bulldog tour who was led by a girl from Ohio. The story they got was that there was a plague in the late 1600s. Over a thousand people died and they were buried in a mass grave on which the church sits today. It is the tortured souls that haunt the area today.
What an absolute load of gibberish.
Some tour guides are priceless; others are worthless just like everything else.
Some carriage companies are better than others in their treatment of their animals. I would argue that it is they who are more successful.
One other response to Elizabeth’s piece was from Lu-Lu-Lu who I suspect was from New York. Said she, “A change is coming … for NYC, Rome, Charleston and who know where else. Electric cars will take the place of horse-drawn carriages, which are soooooo last century … besides being inhumane and just plain gross as the investigative report stated.
“Mayor Riley better line up his ducks all in a row. If he wants to be in office for another 30 years (please god no) he needs to start hanging out with a different crowd. Until then – BOYCOTT CHARLESTON! Go someplace where they do not have carriage horses. [To Elizabeth] I am sorry you work in the hospitality industry but maybe you need to develop a way to suggest to tourists that they do something else. You have a golden opportunity.”
I don’t know Lu-Lu, you live in country where 17 networks covered the Michael Jackson funeral.
I might ask what do you have against the Amish, Lu? So we are not to go gawk at them as they hitch their wagons to go to market.
Good luck with that boycott thing. It worked like a charm for the NAACP.