By Timothy C. Davis
Staff Writer

I may have strayed in this fine town 'cause there's a wild parade that never hits the ground
Don't be afraid, child, in this...this fine town
I watched the world go 'round from a tiki bar where the girls go down
I watched the world, world go 'round

CHORUS: No matter where you're from, or who you are
The good times come on Ocean Boulevard

Tee-shirts, piercings fake tattoos, many hennas you can choose
Low-ride jeans, bikini tops, foot-long hot-dogs, candy shops

Mother Fletcher was good to you,
The Freaky Tiki was an all-out zoo
Cops on bicycles allow the show
You'd best not try them or downtown you'll go

-From "Ocean Boulevard" by the SeaWeedz

It's a tranquil scene, really. It's one of the last few days of winter, temperate even, and young couples, walking hand-in-hand, duck into and come out of shops on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, pointing out racy cheap beachwear stretched tight over mannequins and airbrushed memorabilia of all types. A police car skronks its siren at a young man who's idling his moped on the sidewalk, then calmly smiles and waves the teen off. Timeshare vendors spit their time-burnished sales pitches at indifferent ears. The smell of fried food and cigarette smoke lingers in the air.

On the next block, a large plot of upturned soil, once trod upon by generations of thrill-seekers, stands vacant. Once the home to the Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park, it now stands as Myrtle Beach's biggest pile of high-priced dirt, awaiting whatever plans the Burroughs & Chapin company - mixed business and residential, it is said - has for it.

Meanwhile, a nearby building that once housed scores of spring breakers, 708 North Ocean Boulevard, has been split up into a few different beachwear stores, offering to slake your thirst for Myrtle Beach T-shirts and commemorative drink cozies, provided you didn't stop a block before or can't wait to make it another before purchasing your keepsakes.

The building in question was once home to one of the more storied local nightclubs of recent memory, a nightclub that became both famous and infamous for different reasons. It was called the Freaky Tiki, and it became legendary, along with its neighbor Mother Fletcher's, for catering to the spring break crowd and all the debauchery that young people on leave from school thrive on. Foam parties were a regular occurrence, as were wet T-shirt contests.

Which is where the trouble began.

On Jan. 31, 2006, Judge Stanton Cross said the Freaky Tiki must remain closed because it was a public nuisance that encouraged lewd and illegal behavior among its patrons. The Freaky Tiki joined the similarly-shuttered Club Baja, Club Static and the Shark Club as clubs shut down by the city, mostly for obscenity violations of the Hanes-and-H2O variety. The previous fall, Cross had issued a temporary injunction against the Freaky Tiki after a court hearing in which Myrtle Beach officials said the club's wet T-shirt contests violated the city's adult-entertainment laws. In court hearings, business owners near the site also complained of fights and vandalism from club patrons after the club closed (despite the fact that, after shutting down for the night, clubs have little to no control over where their customers go, and that such claims are of dubious legal standing).

Freaky Tiki owners Joe Amendola and Allen Dickenson were forced to shutter their club for good. A nightspot known throughout the whole East Coast - and this is more or less before the MySpace Generation - was no more.

And yet, the Tiki torch was not to be permanently extinguished, as you'll find out.

Rather, it was passed.

A NEW LEASE ON LIFE

Located beside strip club Thee Dollhouse, The Tiki at The Afterdeck bears only passing resemblance to the old club. Amendola is a consultant on the project, says Jeff Martin, who, along with Tripp Coan and Larry Frakes, is the one with his name on the lease with Michael Peters, who owns Thee Dollhouse franchises in Myrtle Beach and Florida. The Afterdeck location offers the Tiki name a new lease on life. A two-year lease, says Martin.

Anyone who ever visited a nightclub - a happening nightclub - knows that memories can be made at such a place. (They can also be forgotten, rather quickly sometimes). There's glamour. There's girls and guys. There's bright lights, and bass-heavy beats, and usually a fair amount of booty.

The new Tiki, it seems, is no different. Entering, you hear the familiar dance-floor classics - 50 Cent, Kanye West, DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat" - but in an utterly new, open-air environment. Enter the establishment, as we did on the club's Grand Opening last Thursday (March 13) evening, and you walk down a thin hallway lined with tropical plants and aluminum beer tubs. This opens up into a larger room. To your left, there is a large, recessed dance floor with the requisite lights and disco ball, as well as bamboo dancing cages for whenever the mood (or the booze) hits. This is overlooked by a large stage, which on this night was set up with a drum kit, behind which is a large bank of TV screens, showing videos of most of the artists playing over the sound system. To your right is a heated, open-air bar area with tables and upholstered, animal-print bar stools and tables done up in jungle-y zebra stripes. A huge Tiki icon with piercing green eyes belches smoke every couple of minutes, standing sentry over the proceedings. Walk straight ahead, and you have a porch area overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two Tikis isn't immediately apparent. There's a small staircase leading upstairs, where the Tiki ceases to be something you often see in Myrtle Beach, and more like something you'd see in Miami - or at least Miami filtered through Myrtle Beach. There are futon-like, mosquito-netted beds lining a large blue fountain, which is surrounded on all sides by a wood railing. There are black-tableclothed tables with votive candles atop them. There is warm, blood-orange colored recess lighting. There is a tented bar offering more high-end mixed drinks than the multi-use bars located downstairs. Behind and above this is yet a third deck, also laid out with tables and painted a pearly white, and which stretches to the back of the building, providing a unobstructed view of the Waterway.

Phil "D.J. QP" Jackson, a 27-year-old Murrells Inlet resident and the former resident DJ at The Afterdeck and now a part time DJ at the Tiki, says that "I am sure the vibe will be pretty much the same. Every time I walked into that building (The Afterdeck) prior to the merge it would remind me of the Tiki, and now we have the old Tiki décor, too. Basically, it's the same old Tiki with a bigger and better venue to house it. The foam will still be falling."

A TALE OF TWO CLUBS

Co-owner Martin - also the co-owner of teen club Club Karma, located in the old Shark Club location on Ocean Boulevard - says putting the new Tiki together took less work than you'd expect but more than you might realize upon first laying eyes upon it.

"It wasn't major renovation - a lot of it was cosmetic," he says. "We put in a new sound system and lights and furniture and paint, but the layout in some ways was already there - the challenge was how to best utilize it, and make sure everything flowed - the lights, the sound, all that sort of thing. It's such a big place - I believe the fire code limit's around 1,800 - that you want to have that thread running through everything, and I think we do. We've got a few more things we want to do too, especially with the outdoor seating area."

Brittany Marshall, a 23-year-old Myrtle Beach resident, says of the old Freaky Tiki that "just by it being located on the strip you got to meet a lot of interesting people...It was the first club I ever went to," although she hopes the new Tiki will be "a little more upscale, and a little less beach-trashy."

As Marshall notes, proximity to the ocean was a major draw for the old Freaky Tiki, Martin says he thinks the new location near Restaurant Row will allow the club to garner a new group of patrons while still retaining some of the old ones.

"Where the Tiki used to be on Ocean Boulevard, you had a lot of transients. Here we've got a nice central location - all the college kids that stay in Cherry Grove and North Myrtle Beach have a pretty convenient drive, as do people even in the south part of Myrtle Beach - and there's just a different atmosphere.

"We looked at the place a while back," Martin continues. "And at the time, thought it was too big. Tripp came into the Afterdeck a few years back, before he was with us, and renovated the deck area and put a couple hundred thousand dollars into it."

Martin says that after some initial misgivings, they saw a chance to put an established name on an established location, garnering the new club concept two separate streams of word-of-mouth advertising for the price of one. The Afterdeck, which opened in 1980, got its start as an outdoor bar attached to a restaurant called Dominic's. The interior of The Afterdeck has remained pretty much the way it was in its live music heyday during the '80s and early '90s, when it hosted acts such as Drivin' 'N' Cryin', Matthew Sweet, Hootie and the Blowfish, Widespread Panic, and others.

"When we were putting it together, we knew we wanted to get The Afterdeck name in there. If we have a radio advertisement and just say 'The Tiki' and the address, it's not as effective to locals or people coming from out of town if you mention The Afterdeck name, which resonates with people. It's been here for a while, and people know where it is.

"We're not trying to mooch off of the name of the old Tiki," he says. "It's a brand new place, a new version. Like with The Afterdeck name, we have a right to it based on our investors and the like, and it's a name that resonates with people. Some people in town will take a name without having any claim to it other than inhabiting the same building.

"People might come for the name, but I think once they see what we've done here, they're going to have a good time, and want to come back again, whether it's next week or when they're down here again on vacation a year later."

And yet, it can't be discounted that The Tiki's Myspace.com page advertises that "The Tiki Returns" - how can you return if you've never been somewhere else? - and that last Thursday's Afterdeck sign welcomed folks into "The New Tiki." A video connected to the club's most recent Myspace.com message touts the Tiki as the wildest place for spring break and includes footage of girls in bikinis grinding on each other. To boot, the club's logo is almost exactly the same as the old location's, with the notable exception of the word "Freaky." Martin says the omission isn't an accident.

He says his vision of a swankier-yet-still-swinging Tiki promises surprises aplenty (on Thursday, acrobats and a live drummer playing along with the D.J.) no matter the night, in an effort to draw both the local crowd and visitors, without being known as catering to one over the other.

For instance, the old Freaky Tiki boasted porn icon Ron Jeremy on a regular basis. Martin says celebrities will have their place at the new Tiki, although you might only find out about it after your pal sends you an urgent "be here...now" text message.

"We're not averse to having in, say, a celebrity on a given night and not promoting it," he says. "Just having the person show up and watch people freak out. We've got a lot of things planned - we've got some MTV celebrities coming in, for bike week we have Skid Row playing, and we have a performance with Mini-KISS scheduled, and Jim Rose, who is doing a new reality show type of thing, will host a talent competition here over a week's time.

"Nothing's worse than going to a club and see

ing the same sort of thing over and over. Obviously, those things that are successful you're going to want to keep, but we always want to keep it fresh, where you're wondering what's going to happen next."

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

As you've probably gleaned, the new Tiki partnership is trying to distance itself from the old problems faced by the Freaky Tiki. Part of distancing itself, it seems, comes from physically distancing itself from the old controversy. Tiki at The Afterdeck, unlike the Freaky Tiki of old, is not located in Myrtle Beach city limits, instead nestled into the unincorporated area of Horry County between Myrtle Beach and Briarcliffe Acres.

So it appears to be out of sight, out of mind for our fair city.

When reached for comment, Mark Kruea, Public Information Officer for the City of Myrtle Beach, says that since "the new location isn't in the city...I really don't have anything to add."

Martin insists the new Tiki won't be up to old tricks, anyway.

"We're not going to have naked people running around in here," he says, jokingly adding that if that's what people want, they need only walk next door to Thee Dollhouse. "But we will have dance competitions and things like that, more around when the Spring Break people get here."

But how strict is Horry County proper when it comes to nightclub policing?

Deputy Chief David Beaty of the Horry County Police Department says that enforcement of alcohol-related licensing falls under the jurisdiction of the S.C. Department of Revenue and the S.C. Law Enforcement Division. These two agencies, says Beaty, have the ability to exercise the options that can result in arrest or the suspension and revocation of alcohol licenses.

"If a nightclub is unable or unwilling to conduct its business in a lawful manner - or prevent illegal activities from occurring on the premises - then there exists the option of approaching the Solicitor's Office to have the business declared a nuisance," Beaty says.
According to Beaty, conditions and steps for building a nuisance case are contained in the S.C. Code of Laws and require collaboration between law enforcement and court officials. "Occasionally there are complaints which predominantly fall within our jurisdiction," Beaty continues, adding that the HCPD's role isn't of hunting down lawbreakers, but reactive in nature, either thanks to documented and reported criminal activity the department receives or in response to uncorroborated "word on the street."

"The Freaky Tiki club had a whole lot of other problems other than the wet T-shirt contests going on," says Johnny Morgan, Chief of Police for the Horry County Police Department. "Yes, there are regulations in place for such things in the county. One, you must have a special events permit if your business is not in the 'adult entertainment' industry. Most bars and clubs are not set up for this, and have to apply for the permit. Under state law, the nipple cannot be exposed and must be covered by paste or a latex covering. We require that the bar that holds a permit and is having a scheduled event to make sure the female parties do not expose that part of the breast. We have in the past, made several cases against female participants for such behavior."

In other words, if a nightclub adequately polices itself - which Martin promises the new Tiki has already and will continue to do - Horry County's not likely to come knockin', no matter how much the house is a'rockin.

"Creedence," a 29-year old Myrtle Beach resident and former radio deejay in Jacksonville, N.C. (of the "Bishop and Creedence Show" on 105.5 WXQR-FM) says that he's looking forward to seeing if The Tiki can combine the vibe of the old club with a new, forward-thinking attitude.

"The V. I. P. area was always a great place to hang while overlooking the old Freaky Tiki," he says. "Now, I'm not the 'club type,' but yet still felt comfortable drinking and partying there. I was always a big fan of the cages that shot air up from the bottom for all the girls with skirts on. I do hope they keep the overall 'theme' of the old club, however. It took Mother Fletcher's years and years to become legendary, but it seems that the Freaky Tiki gained that status in a relatively short time.

"They must have been doing something right."

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