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South Carolina

gas4cache

By gas4cache
in South and Southeast

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jamrasc

+jamrasc

Posted
Posted

Ok I was under the assumption that even if the bill passes, as long as we have permission to hide caches we are fine. Currently we have permission for all Lancaster County and City Parks. We also have permission for State Parks in SC, or at least most of them. Everyone that is hiding caches currently has to have permission. So what exactly is the issue? Cemeteries? Plus remember the governor has to sign it. Has anyone even bothered contacting him? I would gaurentee that he and his boys would absolutely LOVE geocaching.

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CoyoteRed

CoyoteRed

Posted
Posted
So what exactly is the issue?

Built on lies.

The proponents of the bill fully realize and recognize the bill on it's face is not needed and if they had approached other legislators with the truth they wouldn't have gotten very far. They had to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

Too vague.

The areas where it is restricted are not well defined and could really means just about the whole state. I know for a fact whole towns and cities are on the Historical Register. In some cases, major parts of a county has been deemed historically significant.

 

This would mean the restrictions would apply to just about everywhere.

 

Over broad.

No one is complaining about caches in historical and archeological areas. All of the "complaints" are about cemeteries. The other folks are brought in to artificially bolster support. There are and have been no problems with historical or archological areas.

 

Written permission.

It's not just about permission, it's written permission. Even if you are the type of person who gets permission for every placement, what happens now? You have to go back and request the permission in writting. What if the owner balks? He asks, "Why do I need to give you written permission?" You answer, "it's the law." That owner is now going to wonder if it's such a good idea after all.

 

That not to mention the scope of the permisson, how much legal mumbo-jumbo it has to have it, etc., etc. Does anyone erally want to test that in a court?

 

It's draconian

Let's revisit the written permission issue. Many other laws on the books require permission from the land owner, but few, if any, require written permission. (I've not found one.) You can go hunt on someone's land without written permission. You can go pick flower, harvest trees, pick mushrooms, hike, birdwatch, or fish without written permission. You can take a lot of stuff off a person's land with permission that is not in writting. Even the recreational use law doesn't require written permission. Many of those things mentioned are much more significant activities than geocaching. Why written permission?

 

It's also draconian because of the penalties and threats of arrest on very innocent actions. The law subjects you to arrest if you gather information from anything inside the restricted areas even if the cache is outside that area! It means you can't go to downtown Charleston, Summerville, Columbia, some dozens of other towns and cities to read a publically accessible plaque, memorial, road sign, or store front without being subject to arrest if the cache owner didn't get written permission for you to be there.

 

I could go on, but I'm not doing my blood pressure any good. :anitongue:

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Deliveryguy428

+Deliveryguy428

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have full support for those people who are going above and beyond the call of duty who has taking time away from there normal jobs to help us with this and I am going to support them to the end no matter what the coming is.

 

It is sad SC is last at everything good and first at everything bad, and people like us fighting among ourselfs doesn't help geocacing one dadgum bit so frankly if you wanna bash the bill and geocaching in SC start your own thread. I grew up surrounded by things that were said they were never going to make it and frankly 23 years later I am tired of everyone who has a totally defeated attitude. You don't like it, tough, grow up and adapt to change or there are 49 other states waiting for you.

 

If I POed anyone, I am truly sorry, don't take it personal, because the few who know me in person know I am not one to blow up like this, but frankly change can be good, uncertainity is all that was are going on right now and it has to stop.

Edited by geoholic28
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Deliveryguy428

+Deliveryguy428

Posted
Posted

Gas I want to apolozie to you for how this thread has been hijacked into a debate over the bill again.

 

Your main reason for starting the topic was to see if the SCGA website was working, and it is and I hope you have been able to locate it and get on there.

 

I am highly suggesting you lock this thread down cause it has served its purpose to answer your question and only keeping it open will cause more problems then it needs to be and has gotten off topic way too much.

 

Welcome to SC and I pray you have not been run off by all this.

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gpsfun

+gpsfun

Posted
Posted (edited)

I am not suggesting any relaxation of the effort to work against the bill through well reasoned and respectful measures. If the scope of the bill can be limited or the bill killed altogether, that would be good work - make that GREAT work.

 

Disclaimer - I am not involved with law enforcement, nor have I studied non-business law. With that said, I'm not sure if the avenues of constitutionality and enforceability have been pursed with members of the Senate or with the Governor's office. Restricting a person's ability to visit a public area could be challenged, IMO, and certainly a law enforcement officer could not presume to be able to determine a person's intent for being there. In a court of law, proving a person's intent for being present in a public place would be tricky indeed.

 

I would like to digress to make a point.

 

Georgia has a law making it illegal to kill a non-venomous snake in the state. A respected herpetologist presented a scenario on this topic to us once:

Say you observe your neighbor killing a black snake, and you call your local game warden and offer to make a full report, and even to testify if necessary. The game warden would have to go through several steps including arrest, convincing the local prosecutor to move forward with the offense, arraignment, all of the pre-trial stuff, etc. In the mean time, people are out there poaching bear and deer, trapping illegally, and doing other things that are higher on the game warden's and the local prosecutor's priority lists. So prosecutions for killing snakes in Georgia are rare, or perhaps even non-existent. So that is essentially a useless law.

 

I hope our senators and/or our governor will not want to have their names associated with such a law as H3777.

 

<Edited to add my apology for continuing down the derailed path. Sorry.>

Edited by gpsfun
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DiskDevil

+DiskDevil

Posted
Posted
Gas I want to apolozie to you for how this thread has been hijacked into a debate over the bill again.

 

Your main reason for starting the topic was to see if the SCGA website was working, and it is and I hope you have been able to locate it and get on there.

 

I am highly suggesting you lock this thread down cause it has served its purpose to answer your question and only keeping it open will cause more problems then it needs to be and has gotten off topic way too much.

 

Welcome to SC and I pray you have not been run off by all this.

Yep... You are correct! I for one am sorry. I was involved in hijacking part of this thread. The question was answered and this thread has no more purpose.....Any further discussion would only be fueling the fires.

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