Editing Surfside Beach, South Carolina (section)

===Twenty-first century===
{{unsourced section|date=October 2024}}
Surfside Beach adopted a public-places [[smoking ban]] which took effect October 1, 2007. Surfside Beach is the first town in Horry County to enact such a ban, and one of only a handful in South Carolina to do so at the time.

On February 4, 2023, at 2:39 PM [[UTC-5:00|local time]], a [[2023 Chinese balloon incident|Chinese spy balloon]] that had been flying across the United States for days was shot down directly over the town's coast by an [[AIM-9X Sidewinder]] launched from a [[Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor]]. US military aircraft were spotted directly overhead of the town minutes before the balloon was shot down.
[[File:Surfside Beach.jpg|thumb|Surfside Beach in 2023]]