No Beaufort sandbar concert due to COVID-19, but boaters partied on the water anyway
There was no Beaufort Water Fesitival performance or sandbar concert this past weekend due to COVID-19, but people partied on the water anyway.
On what would have been the Water Festival’s opening weekend, some visitors to the Beaufort River sandbar gathered for a live music performance while clusters of boats blasted music from speakers, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources said. The agency had extra patrol boats in Beaufort County for expected traffic but wasn’t there to police social distancing and mask-wearing, department spokesman David Lucas said.
DNR officers were on the lookout for boating violations and wrote a higher than normal number of tickets, with warnings far outpacing citations, Lucas said. The number and nature of ticketed violations weren’t immediately available from DNR on Monday, but two people were charged in Beaufort County waters for boating under the influence.
The patrols were planned because of extra boats expected for the annual sandbar concert and left in place after concert organizers canceled the event July 2. The Beaufort Water Festival, which hosts an annual concert in Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park that would have been Saturday, called off this year’s festival in May.
The DNR team that came to Beaufort County is one that typically travels to various bodies of water throughout the state when higher traffic is expected for holidays and festivals.
“We did see more crowds, more boating traffic than a typical summer weekend,” Lucas said. “But not as many as you would see during a festival or sandbar concert.”
Instead, officers reported seeing multiple smaller impromptu gatherings with no large group amassed around one boat. One included live music — a social media post showed a country artist performing on a pontoon boat to a small crowd — while another gathering played “DJ-type” music.
The state law enforcement body doesn’t believe there is an existing order by Gov. Henry McMaster prohibiting those type gatherings on the water. In the early stages of the pandemic, McMaster ordered boats not to tie up together, and public access to beaches and boat landings had been closed. But those restrictions are now lifted.
An executive order does allow law enforcement to disperse gatherings of three people or more if officers believe there is a threat to public health. Whether an event constitutes a health threat would be for the governor or public health officials to say, Lucas said.
State Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, said she heard about a pop-up music event on the sandbar and was told it was part of a birthday party. She said she understands people’s desire to be out on the water, that the gatherings appear to fall into a gray area amid the governor’s rules during the coronavirus pandemic and that the issue ultimately is a matter of personal responsibility.
She cited social media posts showing a large crowd listening to music in Murrells Inlet in noting the issue wasn’t unique to Beaufort.
“I was with a whole group this morning and every single person was conscious of wearing a mask and social distancing,” Erickson said Monday. “I think that’s what it’s going to take to get us over the hump of these numbers going up and force them to go down.”
