Roofing company in Aynor, SC

AYNOR — When Devin Dorman decided to build a Tesla charging station beside his country store, he didn’t expect to face pushback.

Dorman co-owns Palmetto Farms, a Main Street spot in Aynor known for its homemade grits and cornmeal. He signed a five-year lease with the electric car company in August 2022, and Tesla planned to turn 10 parking spaces in front of the store into a station capable of charging eight to 10 vehicles at once.

“That’s a lot of traffic for our store, but not enough that would create any sort of traffic issues in Aynor,” Dorman said. “All the businesses around us seem to be all about it because it doesn’t do anything but help bolster their business.”

But the project remains in limbo. For months, town officials refused to issue a building permit for the station. This prompted Palmetto Farms to sue the town on June 29.

“There is no substantial justification for Aynor’s failure to act,” the lawsuit stated. “Aynor’s Zoning Ordinances do not prohibit Palmetto Farms from having a supercharger station. By refusing to decide on the building permit application, Aynor deprived Palmetto Farms of an economic use of its property through an unreasonable regulatory delay.”

Aynor Town Manager Tony Godsey declined to comment on the matter, and the town has stated in court documents that the station doesn’t match the zoning for that area. Mayor John Gardner did not respond to a request for comment.

“The vehicle supercharger station that (Palmetto Farms) wishes to install does not fit in the existing zoning classifications, and the town has been in the process of considering a Uniform Development Ordinance that might impact (the store)’s application,” according to the response the town filed in court.

Myrtle Beach News

A unique spot

Dorman, who drives a Tesla, said he wanted to bring a charging station to Aynor because of the outside traffic it could attract. Tesla officials have estimated more than 2,000 vehicles would charge at the Aynor station during the summer months.

Aynor sits along U.S. Route 501 nearly 30 miles west of Myrtle Beach and about 45 miles from Interstate 95.

Although more than a dozen Tesla charging stations line the Grand Strand from North Myrtle Beach to Litchfield, they are all more than a half-hour’s drive from Aynor. There are also about seven stations located along I-95 from Dillon to Florence, but those are also more than 30 minutes away.

South Carolina lags behind its neighboring states in building out a network to charge electric vehicles, even as BMW and Volvo push ahead on plans to build electric vehicles here and a number of companies across the state plan to make battery components.

The assessments put South Carolina behind not only early adopters such as California, but also almost all its Southeastern neighbors.

A study from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy advocacy group put South Carolina fifth among six Southeastern states for rolling out electric cars and chargers.

Georgia and Florida were far ahead of the rest, with only Alabama lagging behind South Carolina.

Palmetto Farms used to be an IGA grocery store, and Dorman said the site has enough available commercial power for a Tesla station. If the charging station is constructed, the store would have a secondary entrance leading into a lounge area with 24-hour amenities. Drivers would access that area with a specific code from the charging station.

“It’s a lit parking lot and a nice area of town. It’s good and safe,” Dorman said. “All those things together is what made Tesla want to be there in the first place because they wanted good experiences for their people that were customers coming to charge.”

(WPDE) — Tropical Storm Idalia dropped a ton of rain across the Pee Dee and the Grand Strand as it moved through Wednesday evening and overnight into Thursday morning.

The Central part of the viewing area saw the highest rainfall totals, with Mullins taking the highest recording for rainfall during Idalia with 11.54 inches! That's followed by Aynor with 10.68 inches.

All of that rain left some roads impassable on Thursday.

SEE ALSO: 25-feet deep sinkhole closes portion of Darlington street

A viewer on Facebook said to be careful heading southbound on Highway 31, as the overpass at the Main Street Connector is washed out.

Massive hole on Highway 31 heading Southbound (Carolina Bays Parkway) (Credit: Russell Cavender)

The South Carolina Dept. of Transportation was reporting two flooding hazards on Highway 501 on either side of Aynor.

Water covered the roadway in those two locations, and State Troopers were out monitoring traffic and flooding levels. The hazards were listed as being US501N between Bill Jones and Bluewater Roads and SC-319, as well as US501S between 0.9 miles south of Marion County line and Bull Jones and Bluewater Roads. SCDOT placed warning signs along the highway for drivers to be cautious.

AFTERMATH: Idalia causes coastal flooding, possible tornadoes along Grand Strand

The Marion County Sheriff's Office said Highway 76 was completely flooded near the Prison Camp/County Maintenance shop. According to SCDOT, the only road completely closed in the county Thursday morning was Guyton Road, though a portion of Shannon Road was closed to traffic, as well.

Little Pee Dee State Park in Dillon was closed Thursday due to flooding from Tropical Storm Idalia.

TRENDING: Photo appears to show legendary Gray Man on Litchfield Beach during TS Idalia

And the Lewis Bay Heritage Preserve off Highway 90 in Horry County was closed to vehicular traffic Thursday, as the South Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources reported flooded roads and downed trees throughout the property. Foot traffic is open.

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AYNOR, S.C. (WMBF) - Palmetto Farms Country Store is suing the town of Aynor over a Tesla Electric Charging Station.

The store owners said they were hoping the charging station would bring more people to town, but Aynor officials won’t issue a needed permit.

The proposed charging station would only take up about 10 parking spots, in the business parking lot, but Tesla’s experts said the small station could bring over 2,000 people into the town per month.

The owners said this charging station is a once-in-a-lifetime deal, that all started while on a vacation.

While traveling to the mountains, Palmetto Farms Country Store co-owners and brothers Andrew and Devin Dorman stopped to charge their Tesla and went shopping. Their seemingly normal routine sparked an idea to get more people to stop in Aynor.

“We’re hoping to bring in some of the Tesla superchargers,” said Devin. “They’re a level three charger.”

The brothers realized Tesla automatically directed drivers to the nearest Tesla charging station. There isn’t another charger for nearly an hour away and with their location being just minutes from Highway 501, the brothers realized they could capitalize on the millions of tourists that travel to Myrtle Beach each year.

Their idea? Evolve their hometown business. While people charge, they can shop at local stores.

“A lot of the only things that thrive are corporate or franchise-owned businesses along 501, like fast food,” said Devin. “A lot of other things struggle to stay alive.”

The brothers emailed Tesla and got a response in favor of the idea on the same day.

Their family business and farm has been around for nearly a hundred years. This isn’t the first time they’ve had to evolve. The brother’s father, David Dorman took a risk of selling his product online when Amazon was new.

“I had this guy call me,” said David. ”He said ‘Can I buy your grits and sell them on Amazon’ and I said I don’t even know what Amazon is.”

Taking that risk paid off, as the seemingly small business is actually a top seller online.

“Our grits are the number one grits on Amazon,” said David.

David’s sons are worried they’ll never get the chance to see if their Tesla charging station idea would pay off as well. Nearly a year after signing a five-year contract with Tesla, the project is still in limbo.

“We didn’t think there was going to be any issues,” said Devin. “There had already been engineers involved that had analyzed the power coming to make sure we had everything we needed.”

The store filed a lawsuit against the town on June 29 over the permit but is still struggling to get answers.

Even though their family business is continuing to evolve, the brothers said their grandfather would be proud of how they’re adapting.

“Our Granddad A.D. Dorman would have loved to see this place. He would be sitting in a rocking chair in the corner just waiting to greet people for sure,” said the brothers.

Palmetto Farms is scheduled to meet with the town of Aynor about the charging station in October.

WMBF News reached out to Aynor Town Manager, Tony Godsey and he declined to comment.

Copyright 2023 WMBF. All rights reserved.

IVA, S.C. – Crescent softball senior pitcher Courtney Baldwin barely celebrated her biggest moment.

Baldwin watched the final out, a ground ball to second, raised her right arm in victory, tossed her mask and glove aside, and started the line for postgame fist-bumps with Aynor’s team.

Maybe she was already thinking about the possibility of a much bigger celebration.

Crescent beat Aynor 1-0 on Wednesday night at Adams Field to force a deciding game in the high school Class AAA best-of-three state finals.

The Lady Tigers (27-4), who lost the series opener 7-1, will try to add to a national-record 19 state championships Friday at neutral site to be announced. Crescent hasn’t been this far since 2017 and hasn’t won since 2013.

Baldwin, who will play at Limestone University, pitched a two-hit shutout. Aynor had runners in scoring position with one out in the fifth and sixth innings, but she shut it down both times.

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“Courtney was unbelievable today,” Crescent coach Jeff Craft said. “Aynor is, without a doubt, the best-hitting team we’ve played. … I knew at practice (Tuesday) she was ready. I didn’t know she was this ready.”

Aynor (29-2) came in having scored 63 runs in seven playoff games.

“I think going to Aynor for that first game, we were all a little nervous,” Baldwin said. “But at home, you’re always comfortable.”

Here are some other takeaways:

Crescent's Emily Blackwell on fire at the plate

Crescent senior second baseman Emily Blackwell (North Greenville) has been a hot all season. She’s batting .570.

Down the stretch in the playoffs, she’s really cranked it up.

Blackwell, in Crescent’s last five games, is 13-for-16 (.813) with 12 steals. She was hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the first, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch but was on the move already, and scored on a sacrifice fly.

Crescent needs more offense than just Blackwell

The Lady Tigers will need more offensive contributors besides Blackwell to win the championship.

They have just four hits in the two games and Blackwell has three of those.

“I hope we can show up and make something happen offensively on Friday,” Craft said. “We’ve seen them now for two games and we have a better idea.”

Another eighth-grader steps up in big spot

Crescent already has three eighth-graders in the starting lineup.

The Tigers had another Wednesday, when shortstop JuJu Owens was a late scratch with a health issue and replaced with Caroline Grey.

“I think Caroline has played three innings of defense all year,” Craft said. “And she went out and played shortstop in the state championship.”

“I thought she did amazing,” Blackwell said. “She embraced it and did great.”

Aynor Mayor John Gardner started Tuesday’s town council meeting discussion with a “Statement Regarding Horry Independent Article.”

The statement comes after the town failed to post agendas or minutes for its council meetings online and did not respond to questions about the resignation of its former town manager, Tony Godsey.

An article titled “Aynor's failure to post public documents violates SC open records law, attorney says” was then published by MyHorryNews and its editorial board wrote a column calling the town’s failure to comply with the state's Freedom of Information Act “alarming.”

“The town needs to become educated on the open records law and take it seriously,” the editorial states. “And the public should care when it doesn’t.”

In a prepared statement read during Tuesday’s meeting, Gardner said the town had not posted its agenda online because he had not been able to gain access to the town website.

“I am currently working with the town’s attorney to assist with this process and I hope to have a resolution in the near future. Although it is not possible to post the actual agenda on the outdoor message center, the date and the time of town council meetings are duly posted. In addition, a copy of the agenda is posted in the main office,” Gardner said.

“Unlike many of our local area governments, it is a very rare occurrence that we enter into an executive session, and under normal circumstances our business is not considered sensational enough to warrant attention from the local media. I find it somewhat astonishing that we are being accused of conducting the town’s business in secrecy. In fact, we have seen a large number of constituents in attendance at our recent meetings. You see we’ve got a full house here tonight, folks.”

South Carolina's open records law requires the town notify the news media before meetings.

"All public bodies shall notify persons or organizations, local news media, or such other news media as may request notification of the times, dates, places, and agenda of all public meetings, whether scheduled, rescheduled, or called, and the efforts made to comply with this requirement must be noted in the minutes of the meetings," the law states.

Prior to the published article, MyHorryNews did not receive email notices ahead of public meetings, despite repeated requests.

Minutes must also be provided upon request and the news media must be informed of meeting dates and times in advance.

MyHorryNews began emailing the town asking for notices of meetings in December.

MyHorryNews filed a FOIA request for the agendas and minutes of the town’s December and January meeting and the town charged the publication $20.56 and a $1.35 service fee for the documents.

The newspaper’s editorial board argued in its column that the agenda and minutes of the meetings should be readily available and free to the public and the media without the need to file a FOIA request.

Following the publication of the article, MyHorryNews received the agenda for the March council meeting via email.

“To alleviate any future concerns and/or comments, the notices of tonight’s meeting and the posting of the agenda were added to the town’s Facebook page and a copy of the agenda was emailed to info@myhorrynews.com. We will continue that process until we are able to post information on the town’s website. And finally, I assure you that I am fully committed to updating the town’s website, and I will make sure that we are in compliance with the FOIA requirements,” the statement concluded.

After the meeting, Gardner said he had not been able to gain access to the website or upload documents to the page since former town manager Godsey resigned. Gardner said Godsey had set up the website. The website is half-functional at the moment as it is able to accept payments for business licenses, building permits, sign permits, rental payments and traffic fines but does not have up-to-date meetings, agendas or other documents available.

Gardner said they have nine applicants for the town manager position and that he wants to meet with council next week to narrow the list down to three or four applicants before conducting interviews. He said the former town manager was paid $60,000 a year.

Gardner said he could not share the list of applicants yet but hopes to have a new town manager hired by the end of May.

As far as why Godsey resigned as town manager, Gardner said “he just resigned.”