COLUMBIA - The later school-start bill is dead for this year, a victim of lack of support.

"We're all disappointed," said Shep Guyton, chairman of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "We have not done a good job of selling our position."

Tourism leaders say early school-start dates have cost businesses and the state a month of tourism revenue because fewer people are vacationing in August.

The Myrtle Beach chamber led the fight for a law that would make schools open closer to their traditional Labor Day start. In recent years, schools have opened earlier and earlier to allow time for preparation for accountability tests.

Guyton said he and supporters will keep trying to help people understand why a later, uniform start date is important.

"I just think we've got a lot of effort we've got to put into it," and there will have to be a grass-roots demand from parents like there was in North Carolina before legislators will act, Guyton said.

North Carolina passed a law last year requiring schools to open closer to Labor Day.

On Tuesday, a Senate subcommittee voted 4-4 for a bill sponsored by Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, that required schools to open no sooner than Aug. 25.

The subcommittee agreed to send the bill to the full committee for review Wednesday without recommendation, but later Rankin asked that the measure be pulled from the agenda.

"I didn't see it advancing," he said. "That being the reality, why have this issue fall on its sword?"

The bill still is in play and can be taken up again next year, but if the full committee voted it down it would be dead for the next session as well, Rankin said.

John Courson, R-Columbia, the committee chairman, said he opposes the bill and so do most of the members. Even if the committee passed it, he said, "I think it would have extreme difficulty in the Senate."

Courson said he has children in school and would like to see a later starting date, "but I think it's a local matter."

He said he hopes the local boards will take note of legislators' concern, though, and work on later starting dates themselves. Rankin agreed that supporters have much more selling to do.

"Our work is cut out for us," he said.

Supporters also must make a better case that the issue is broader than an economic one that serves tourism, he said.

But the exposure of the issue and the growing interest from parents is helpful, so the lack of action this year is not a total loss, he said.

"We're picking up support, albeit slowly," he said. "Hopefully, this gives us a springboard for more attention."