Kemp signs bill holding Orange Crush organizers liable for costs of unpermitted event

A bill that would hold event organizers financially responsible for public events thrown without a permit in the state of Georgia was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp Monday, throwing the future of the annual beach bash known as "Orange Crush" into jeopardy.

The bill, SB 443, was authored by state Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah) in response to last year's Spring Break festival, which is hailed as "the biggest HBCU beach bash to hit the East Coast." Although the official trademarked Orange Crush festival moved to Jacksonville in 2021, Orange Crush originated on Tybee Island in 1988 and has been an annual event attended primarily by Black college students from throughout the South. It will be held this year from April 19-21.

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“I appreciate Governor Kemp’s support in signing Senate Bill 443 into law,” said Watson in a press release following the signing of the bill. “Governor Kemp understands the importance of avoiding situations where promoters bypass local permitting processes and leave citizens with the costs of responding and cleaning up from unpermitted events.”

Gov. Kemp declined to comment on his signing of the bill.

Orange Crush has been unpermitted since 1991, when Savannah State University (SSU) severed its ties with the organizers. Lawmakers and Tybee city officials say that the event — which drew an estimated 50,000 people to the 3-square mile island — constitutes a public nuisance, resulting in hours of standstill traffic on the one road linking the island to the mainland and blocking the pathway for emergency vehicles. Tybee officials estimate that the 2023 Orange Crush cost the city $187,000 due to the cost of providing security, emergency services, toilets and other public safety measures.

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Tybee Mayor Brian West also applauded the signing of the bill, which came in time to go into effect by this year’s event. However, he noted that the owner of the Orange Crush’s official trademark is no longer affiliated with the event in Tybee, leading city officials to pursue other strategies for determining who organized the event, and thus who to hold liable.

“We actively scan social media to see promotions and track what the activities are going to be, where they are going to be held and who's promoting them,” West said. “The promoters also initially come to us and try to work with us to gain permits for the events, and typically they are unable to meet the requirements of the permits because they don't start planning far enough in advance for the types of activities they'd like to have. And so therefore, we're unable to issue permits for what they want to do.”

According to West, three different people have applied for Orange Crush permits between Tybee and Chatham County, all of which have been denied. So far this year, the city has spent an estimated $230,000 on expenses including port-a-potties, barriers to block off two parking lots and fencing for a towing yard.

“One of the most effective ways to deter the abuse that we see here is to block or restrict parking, and so there's going to be very limited parking here,” West said. “We're going to close our lots and block off most of the parking on the island, so the people who are coming here for these events aren’t going to really be able to stay because they won’t be able to find a place to park.”

Though nearby Savannah is now a majority-Black city, Tybee Island has remained predominantly white, with only 3.52% of its residents identifying as Black or African American. The beaches where Orange Crush is held have only allowed Black visitors since 1964, and in 2021, the festival’s original organizer moved the event to Jacksonville, Florida, citing “lack of resources, limited parking, civil rights violations, and political injustices.”

For Jaydon Grant, a recent graduate of SSU who has attended Orange Crush in previous years, the event holds both personal and historical significance; three generations of his family have attended Orange Crush starting with his 74-year-old grandfather.

He said that keeping the event in Savannah is important “because that's where it originated, it has history behind it. You can’t call Savannah State University ‘Savannah State University’ if you take it to Florida. That's not history. It started in Savannah.”

Grant is also a board member of RETIREMOMSSOS, a nonprofit that organized a beach cleanup day scheduled for April 22 in an effort to change the narrative surrounding Orange Crush. He says he hopes that the event will be permitted in the future so that it can be treated the same as other annual events hosted on the island.

"If Tybee can prepare for Fourth of July, Memorial Day, when those events is just as crowded, why can't they do the same thing for Orange Crush?” Grant said. “And so, that's what I want to do. I want to find ways to help to get that event permitted so we can prepare for it.”

Destini Ambus contributed reporting to this article.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Orange Crush 2024: Kemp signs bill holding promoters liable for costs