A Message from
Larry Movshin, CSA Board Chairman
March 28, 2020
3:40 PM
It was so pleasing to hear Beaufort County Sheriff Tanner use his observations of the beaches in Sea Pines to confirm that
social distancing is being followed in our community
during his press conference yesterday. So I want to thank our Sea Pines community for your outstanding efforts in following CDC and SCDHEC guidelines in order to reduce the spread of the COVID19 virus. If we all continue to rigorously follow those guidelines and government mandates we will soon get through this pandemic and be able to resume our “normal” lives again.
I also want to bring our community up to date on several additional actions that have been taken by CSA over the last few days to further reduce that risk and comply with various new governmental mandates.
As many of you know, Governor McMaster has decided he will not order a "shelter-in-place" regimen for all or any parts of our State. He has, however, mandated that
anyone coming from one of the several identified "hot spots"
must
self-quarantine for at least 14 days when they arrive at their destination
. To implement the Governor's order, we have communicated that information on our signage at the Greenwood gate and Ocean gate digital signs, and we are handing each car who picks up a gate pass from the Welcome Center or at the gate a letter which restates the Governor's mandate for any visitor entering Sea Pines. I am confident that any of our "non-resident" property owners choosing to leave "hot spots" to shelter instead in Sea Pines will, for the protection of our community, demonstrate a very high degree of compliance with the Governor's mandate as they return "home."
I am very pleased also to report that many of the rental companies who rent properties in Sea Pines have announced that they will not accept any new rental reservations for the period from March 27 through April 9, and several of our local Sea Pines rental management companies are extending that moratorium to April 19
th
in order to further dissuade new tourism. We’ve been advised by The Sea Pines Resort and by the South Beach Inn and Vacation Rentals at South Beach Marina that they have all gone a step further -- this weekend they will be cancelling
any
reservation involving persons coming from the “hot spot” areas for this same three-week period. With Mayor McCann urging tourists to delay all trips to Hilton Head for the next several weeks, we truly appreciate this voluntary effort by all of these rental companies to limit the number of vacationers who might otherwise choose to come to Hilton Head.
As reported in our weekly communication, CSA has decided to close off the Pavilion at Tower Beach to avoid the temptation to gather in larger groups there. We are keeping Tower Beach and the restroom facilities open for the use of our owners and their accompanied guests. Given the very high compliance with social distancing that we have already seen at all of our Sea Pines beaches, and the clear health benefits that visits to the beach can provide, we think this is a reasonable measure in protecting our community's health and safety.
I am also happy to report some reasonable success with our efforts to assure that our beaches remain closed to the general public, and available only for Sea Pines property owners, their guests and renters of property in Sea Pines. The number of daily gate passes issued to tourists has dropped 92% from the same period last year, with the bulk of those purchasing passes this past week headed to the golf courses or tennis centers, where they have little contact with our general populace. Our security officers patrol the beach streets regularly, and the Tower Beach will be attended throughout much of the day. Given the adequate amount of available parking at the Beach Club (and virtually no problem this week with daily passes parking there), the Beach Club may not be attended at all times during the day,
but
Resort Staff will regularly monitor the parking lot, and any car parked there with only a Daily Pass will be told to leave immediately. And if you see a Daily Pass car stopping to let beachgoers off at a private beach access points, please call Sea Pines Security at 843-671-7170 and they will investigate.
With the number of tourists now at record lows, I hope we will all consider using the services of those of our Sea Pines restaurants and shops that remain open for you, all as described in the various links below. These neighbors need our community’s support during these trying times, and they will do everything they can to provide their services in a healthy and protective manner.
Finally, I want to acknowledge with gratitude the huge number of emails we received in response to my last message, which overwhelmingly supported the actions we are taking to limit exposure to the COVID19 virus. These are truly unusual times, and I can assure you that CSA’s sole focus is the health and wellbeing of our entire community - recognizing that this requires a balancing of interests and concerns as to how best to achieve that result. As I noted before, Sea Pines is a uniquely strong community and if we all remain calm and "neighborly" we will come through this pandemic in good shape for the future.
Click here
to view operational updates from our Sea Pines commercial partners.
Click here
to view a listing of Sea Pines operations providing for take-out, curbside pick-up or delivery options.
