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Beach business is hot; water's not
By AMY WIMMER and LEON TUCKER © St. Petersburg Times, published January 3, 2001
Restaurants were hopping all weekend. Tanning salons broke sales records. At one point the line stretched out the door at St. Pete Beach's Internet Outpost Cafe, where tourists who had hoped to sip lemonade from beach chairs were lining up for coffee and a chance to check their e-mail. "It's because there's nothing to do on the beach during the day," said Amy Gustafson, who manages the cafe. "People were definitely complaining about the weather." Meanwhile, anyone offering personal watercraft rentals or boat trips to Shell Key got barely a nibble of business from the influx of holiday tourists. "I can't find anybody with a search warrant," said Rusty Ercius, who spent a lonely week at Pass-a-Grille Bait & Tackle at the Merry Pier. Tourism officials dismissed the idea that the cold snap could have repercussions on future seasons, but said they are reminding visitors about Tampa Bay's average temperature during the first week. In the past 30 years, the National Weather Service reports, the average has been 70 degrees, not the mid-50s temperatures folks have experienced this week. "They know it's kind of a fluke to have it this cold for this many days," said Debbie Stambaugh, executive director of the Gulf Beaches Chamber of Commerce. "The rest of the country is even worse." And Carole Ketterhagen, director of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, predicts that January 2001, with or without this bone-numbing cold snap, will be a record-breaking month for Pinellas tourism. Spirited fans from Ohio and South Carolina got the month off to a good start by enthusiastically following their teams to the Outback Bowl this weekend, she said, and Super Bowl XXXV at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium will only help the cause. Tourism has made solid gains in Pinellas the past several years, and the number of January visitors increased from 206,000 in January 1995 to 233,000 in January 2000, according to the convention and visitors bureau. "The most important thing for our destination is we have the world record for days of sunshine," Ketterhagen said. "When you're living in the Northeast or the Midwest and those gray days just go on and on, you want to go somewhere where it's sunny." And when the sun isn't cooperating with beachgoers' plans, they make do.
The Sun Buns Tanning Salon was so busy this weekend that owner Glenn Kaisner had to turn some potential customers away when his tanning beds had reached capacity. "Last week, beginning Monday, we have been swamped, more so than ever," Kaisner said. "It was partly because of the weather, but the bowl game brought in a lot of people, too." On Friday, he welcomed 35 new clients to his salon, 30 of them from out of state. He doubled sales records on Friday and then did twice as much business as usual Saturday. "These visitors come to Florida for it to be nice and warm, and it isn't," Kaisner said. Florida is, however, expected to have a slightly warmer than normal winter, while the Midwest and Northeast are anticipating a harsh winter, according to long-term projections from the National Weather Service. That's an ideal situation for gulf beaches tourism, Ketterhagen said. "Our feeling is we like for it to be really cold up North, but we like for it to be good enough weather where people can travel," she said. Dan Morales, owner of Ink & Steel tattoo and piercing shop, says business has slowed down because of the chill. The tourist traffic makes up much of the business activity in Indian Rocks Beach, but Morales expected the locals to bring him through the cooler weeks. "Normally the first week after Christmas, business is good because everyone has stocking money," he said. "But we didn't get much of that this year. The cold weather, I think, did have a lot to do with it." Morales said he usually services about 24 people a week during the holiday season. This year, he has only seen that many customers since the week before Christmas. At Seaside Gifts across the way, Nancy Krupa has seen changes of her own. "Our business is still about the same," she said. "Except, we just sold completely different items. Before Christmas we sold the towels, T-shirts and suntan lotion. Now we're selling sweat shirts and gifts." Tourists are hunkering down in places like Crabby Bill's seafood restaurant. "It hasn't affected the customers. They've kept coming in," said Dan White, manager of the Gulf Boulevard restaurant. "We've been doing good because I guess they need someplace to go. They can't stay on the beach all day." The Tampa Bay region has experienced lengthy bouts of cold weather before, particularly in the 1970s and early '80s, said David Rittenberry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "We've just been so warm the last three winters that even getting back to a normal winter was going to feel cool," Rittenberry said. "And suddenly dropping back to a below-normal winter is feeling frigid." Frigid is right. This week, Pinellas should expect more of the same, with lows in the 30s at night and the 50s during the day, according to the National Weather Service. Today should be the nicest of the past week, with mostly sunny skies, highs in the upper 50s and only slight winds. Thursday will be slightly cooler, with highs in the mid 50s. Then a high of around 60 on Friday and mid to upper 60s on Saturday. Sunday and Monday should be nice, too, but thunderstorms are also a possibility.
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