The Surfside Beach Town Council conducted a workshop for the goose ordinance prohibiting the feeding of waterfowl and other birds on Thursday, April 16.

During public comment at the end, Myrtle Beach personal injury lawyer Stuart Axelrod, the face of Axelrod & Associates, P.A. in Myrtle Beach, said he filed a federal lawsuit against the town of Surfside Beach the morning of the workshop.

Axelrod said he wanted to address the elephant in the room. He said reprimanding his client and Surfside Beach resident Maria Pesce is the motivation of this ordinance.

“We all talk about her without mentioning her,” Axelrod said. “I suggest you make her the ambassador of the geese. Get her a Surfside golf cart. Give her a visor. Give her a walkie talkie and give her goose-poop girl. Let her pick the poop up. Give her a job, $7.50 an hour, she said she would do it.”

Axelrod said feeding the geese is not causing the abundance of geese in Surfside Beach, but rather the water and grass attracts the migrating birds. He said workshops that advise small fences or contracting a street sweeper to clean the feces would be more effective solutions.

“I hate to see people go to jail for feeding geese, but also I am very much aware that there’s a lot of anger in this town by adjacent owners who are suffering, not just the issues with having geese on or near their property, but also substantial reductions in the values of the property.” 

“The geese aren’t leaving and it’s not because of her,” he said. “They are trying to blame her and she’s not the problem.”

Axelrod & Associates, P.A. Attorney Tristan Shaffer is assigned to Pesce’s case and said her goal is to protect the geese from being killed, which she says is a serious problem in Surfside Beach. Pesce is active on social media saying the geese are being killed and criticizes the town’s government for not penalizing the individuals who harm them.

Shaffer said Pesce frequently walks around town to film people harming the geese and the lawsuit was prompted by a letter from the Surfside Beach Police Department that cautioned Pesce would be arrested if she continued to do this.

“She was walking on the street and one of her neighbors called and complained about her walking on the street, using her camera phone to film the geese. [The police] send her a letter saying ‘You can’t do this anymore. If you do, you face potential criminal harassment charges,’” Shaffer said. “The police cannot prevent you from going to a public place and pursuing things that are essentially critical of local government… We filed a lawsuit based off of that and we have a couple other claims in there.”