COLUMBIA - A bill requiring hotels to post notices if they don't have fire sprinklers passed the House on Tuesday over the objections of some Horry County representatives.

The bill, which started in the Senate as a requirement that hotels install sprinklers, is in response to a deadly hotel fire in Greenville last year.

Current law requires new hotels to have sprinkler systems. The requirement that older hotels install them met with too much resistance so the proposal was changed to a mandate that innkeepers post a notice at the front desk that the building does not have sprinklers.

Still, the hospitality industry opposed it, including some House members who are hoteliers.

Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, whose businesses include hotels in historic buildings in Charleston, tried to exempt buildings less than four stories, historic structures, and hotels built of brick or masonry, all without success.

Limehouse said the bill is "telling the private sector what to do."

Rep. Tracy Edge, R-North Myrtle Beach, supported Limehouse's attempt to exempt brick or masonry buildings.

"My family owns a motel that is constructed strictly of concrete and steel," and a fire could not spread from one room to another, Edge said.

It's not fair to people who paid extra to build strong structures to have to post a notice to customers that indicates the hotel might not be safe, Edge said.

Rep. Billy Witherspoon, R-Conway, said there have been no hotel fires in the Myrtle Beach area that anyone can remember, and the sprinkler notices might scare tourists away from hotels that post them.

Limehouse tried to kill the bill, saying that dentists, lawyers and shoe stores don't have to post signs if they don't have sprinklers.

The bill passed 76-21.

Edge and Witherspoon voted no along with Liston Barfield, R-Aynor, Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, Nelson Hardwick, R-Surfside Beach and Vida Miller, D-Pawleys Island.

Jim Battle, D-Nichols, voted yes; Carl Anderson, D-Georgetown and Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, did not vote.

Because the House changed the bill, it must be approved again in the Senate or be sent to a conference committee to work out the differences.