EDITOR'S LETTER

It was only a matter of time.

Sooner or later, someone was going to have to crack down on the shenanigans out on Morris Island.

Anyone who’s even remotely plugged into the local boating scene can tell you that the party out there has been out of control for quite some time.

This Mardi-Gras atmosphere has come on strong in the past few years and apparently reached some kind of highwater mark at this year’s annual raunch-fest on the Fourth of July. The mounds of trash these fools left behind sparked a swift crackdown by the city of Charleston, which has jurisdiction over the historic and uninhabited island.

You can bet that both state and local law enforcement officers will be on the warpath out at Morris. Signs explaining the ban on littering, drinking, unleashed pets, fireworks and other no-nos have already gone up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole island was declared off-limits if the situation doesn’t improve.

Who could blame them? For a long time, officials and law enforcement agencies have given the local boating crowd plenty of leeway. I’ve been rafting up at regattas and pulling up to boat-only beaches for quite a few years now, and I’ve rarely seen anything close to heavy-handedness when it came to allowing folks to have a good time.

For the most part, it has seemed like a fairly straight-forward, mutually beneficial deal. We, the boating public, can party down as long as we don’t raise too much of a ruckus and make sure to clean up after ourselves when we leave. In return, the Department of Natural Resources and various local law enforcement agencies don’t have to burn valuable manhours babysitting at the beach.

What a great privilege. And now, what a shame.

To be sure, the blame for this mess lands squarely on the shoulders of the local — yeah, local — boating crowd. Nobody can claim, with a straight face, that the Morris Island debacle is the result of ill-mannered tourists.

I guess it’s possible that a wave of rowdy Midwesterners rented every boat in town and packed them to the gunwales with beer funnels, Jello shots and generator-powered slip-and-slides. But somehow, I doubt it.

This is a local scene, folks. If it wasn’t local boaters who caused the mess out there, it was all their rowdy friends who rode with them out to the island.

Either way, you could certainly see this one coming.

Over the years, Morris has evolved from a relatively tame boater’s getaway to one of the best places in town to behave badly and get away with it. A place where mostly young adults could drink irresponsibly, strut their stuff, see some skin and be part of a grand spectacle. All with very little worry of being hassled by police.

I wasn’t out at Morris on the Fourth of July this year — we decided to beach our boat at another, more low-key barrier island. This decision was based, in part, on our experience at Morris on July 4, 2008. It was nasty business: Boats driven dangerously, anchored poorly and packed too tightly. Truly bad music, played too loudly. Even worse tattoos, in places they shouldn’t have been. Obnoxious behavior by even the most fun-loving standards.

All the while, hundreds of people wading out to relieve themselves in the shallows as cigarette butts, beer cans and soggy hotdog buns floated by.

I don’t know if I’m getting too old or too smart for that kind of scene. Maybe both.

Bottom line? What happened to Morris is what happens when someone throws a small get-together for friends and word of a party gets out. Pretty soon, everyone looking for a good time starts showing up. Things can get out of hand.

Well, the word got out on Morris, and the folks who showed up brought wild expectations and a powerful thirst.

They trashed the place.

It was only a matter of time before someone had to call the cops.

— Matt Winter, Tideline senior editor