Few merchants are under fire from the pandemic like those in America’s beach towns, which earn the vast majority of their annual sales from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The stakes are higher, the losses, amplified.
“Our businesses have 12 weeks to make money to survive the rest of the year,” says Lauren Weaver, executive director of the Bethany-Fenwick Chamber of Commerce, noting that sales for the town’s 75 or so beach-district merchants are down 40% to 70% compared with a year ago. “A lot of them are not going to survive.”
Others are faring surprisingly well. Revenue for merchants in Ocean City, Maryland, is down just 20% to 25%, says Susan Jones, head of the Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association. She partly credits the city’s decision to reopen its beaches relatively early in mid-May and mount an aggressive advertising campaign.
Days later, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania required residents traveling to Delaware to quarantine for 14 days upon their return. The Bethany Beach Ocean Suites Hotel — with an average daily summer rate of $799 — was flooded with cancellations, lowering occupancy from 100% to 70%, says general manager LorrieMiller.The quarantine mandate was recently lifted but then reinstated by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Other speed bumps to recovery remain as well.
Lifeguards watch over a crowded Bethany Beach on June 10. They've been trained to work in teams for rescues, wearing masks and gloves when possible due to coronavirus. A sign says masks are required on the boardwalk.Even with thinner crowds, businesses are struggling to hire employees with the J-1 visa summer exchange program suspended during the pandemic. Many local high school and college students simply won’t work. Some young adults, or their parents, fear catching the virus.
Heidenberger snared a $250,000 forgivable federal loan to rehire nearly all of the 90 or so employees he laid off during the state’s shutdown. When bars were allowed to reopen in mid-June, Heidenberger figured he was off and running. Liquor, he says, accounts for most of his profits since its costs make up just 14% of revenue while food costs comprise nearly a third of sales. “You’re taking away from us the thing that makes the most money,” Heidenberger says, suggesting that closing bars sends young adults to house parties, where they’re more likely to be infected.
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