CITY FOCUS:Tourist spending down

The July heat wave cooled off summer business this year from last year’s highs.

Merchants said large crowds of tourists in town to escape the heat did not add up to bigger profits for them, and festival spokespeople said gate receipts were down.

Paul Kim of Taco Laguna, located on Broadway near Main Beach, said that his sales were definitely worse than last year.

“There’s no parking here. There’s a lot of people on the beach, but nowhere to park,” he said.

“I did have a lot people asking me for change,” said Michelle Melendez of the Art of Living store on Forest Ave.

She also commented on the high volume of walk-through traffic, saying sales were “OK.”

“July brought a whole bunch of people into town, but they were filling trash containers at Main Beach, not cash registers,” said George Nelson, owner of Fawn Memories on Forest Ave.

Nelson was one of the few merchants who reported an increase over 2005 summer sales.

“You have to remember that last year there was about a 25% increase over 2004,” Nelson said.

The 2005 bump was attributed in large part to the MTV reality TV show starring Laguna Beach teenagers.

Whatever is drawing people to Laguna Beach, the numbers tell the story.

City Manager Ken Frank said the total ridership for the summer trolley service this year was the highest ever — 374,000 passengers.

“This is a 6.5% increase over the prior season, and is the 14th season in a row that ridership has increased over the prior year,” Frank said.

Despite the large number of visitors, all three of Laguna’s art festivals reported ticket sales were off in July.

“Fortunately, we rebounded in August,” said Sharbie Higuchi, Festival of Arts marketing and public relations director.

The sold-out Pageant of the Masters is included in the total gate, which was down less than 2% from last year.

“I am very pleased,” Higuchi said. “We were much further down in July, but we rebounded in August.”

Gift shop sales at the Festival of Arts were up almost 11% over last year. No figures were available for art sales.

“We do not monitor art sales,” Higuchi said. “As a show we have heard that some people did well and some didn’t, but that’s what happens every year.”

Festival board member and exhibitor Carolyn Reynolds was among those who had a good summer, but she too had heard that other artists did not fare so well.

“August rocked,” said Rebecca Meekma, Sawdust Festival media and community relations manager.

“I don’t have the grand totals for ticket sales yet, but the paid attendance the last week in August was up 10% over last year. July did not rock. That heat killed us. People were coming to Laguna to cool off, not to buy or enjoy art and culture.”

Sawdust exhibitor Ken Lauher said business was down as much as 20%.

“Attendance was down in the canyon big-time, especially during the heat wave, and we struggled very hard to bring the attendance back up in August,” said Floyd O’Neil of the Art-A-Fair. “When it’s as hot at the beach as it is inland, it’s pretty scary.”

He describes himself as “cautiously optimistic” for the future. “I don’t know what to predict for next year; it’s a little disheartening and disconcerting,” O’Neil said.

The consensus is that more people visited Laguna this summer.

“We particularly noticed a pick-up in teenage traffic,” said Sgt. Jason Kravetz, police department traffic supervisor.

The Explorers, a youth group attached to the police department who worked as traffic control to reduce congestion at the corners of Forest Ave. and Third St. and Glenneyre St. and Beach St., were bombarded with questions about locations seen on the Laguna Beach MTV show.

“Their purpose was to stop the double parking while waiting for a parking space or to drop off passengers, to group pedestrians at street crossing and to clear intersections as traffic backed up,” Kravetz said.

“The by-product was that they became ambassadors for the city. They directed people to restaurants, shops, parking and the locations on the television show.”