Companies Hit Highs, Lows in Heat

Tips for surviving one of the worst heat waves on record: Pour a frosty drink. Or see a flick inside a frigid movie theater. But forget about getting that clunky air conditioner fixed right away.

As the temperatures continued to soar Monday, so did Southern California’s interminable search for everything cool. Outdoor workers started before dawn so they could cut out early. Others toiled into evening as customers scrambled for electric fans, ice cream and anything to keep the heat away.

At Union Ice Co. in Los Angeles, where they produce 450 tons of ice a day, the machines are running nonstop. And even that’s not enough.

“We have not shut off since June 30 and I don’t know when we will,” said President Brett Willberg, who expects a record-setting profit this year for the business that’s been around since 1882.

“Everything we’re making, we’re bagging. Everything we’re bagging, we’re selling. We can probably sell 50% more than we do now,” he said. “I’ve talked to people who have been in the business for 30 years and they said they’ve never seen a summer like this. It’s unrelenting.”

For businesses, the weather meant profits and losses -- and how.

Gardena-based Southern Comfort Air is turning away 15 to 20 customers a day who are seeking repairs, replacements and installations.

Some unlikely businesses were affected, including Parisian Hairs & Wigs Inc. on South Crenshaw Boulevard. Business on Monday was down 40% on an already slow day of the week. The weave business is taking a hit because nobody wants more hair when it’s hot and sticky outside.

“I feel sorry for all the women who have to wear wigs on a day like today,” co-owner Hanna Suh said in her shop, which was warm despite a big fan blasting air in and the AC cranked all the way up. “It will affect us a lot if this keeps up, but we rely on the fact that women just can’t go walking around bald.”

People are tending to skip anything outdoors with no breeze, but places with free air conditioning reported busy business. Movies and malls, for example, are popular among the heat avoiders.

An AMC Entertainment Inc. spokesperson acknowledged a “slight uptick” in attendance at Los Angeles-area theaters. Big box-office receipts and packed auditoriums suggest that business is strong.

When it comes to shopping malls, indoor centers are faring better than outdoor ones.

“There is definitely some action here that is all about the heat,” said Laurel Crary, manager of the Westside Pavilion shopping center. “Every time it gets really, really hot you see people migrate to movies and indoor shopping. It’s good for us because window shopping can turn into serious shopping.”

At the Grove, though, owner Rick Caruso reported volume down. “If people didn’t have to get outside, they didn’t,” he said.

People staying indoors weren’t always well off, either, with power outages affecting neighborhoods throughout Southern California. One outage knocked down MySpace, one of the Internet’s most popular destinations with 52 million U.S. visitors last month.

Based in Beverly Hills, the News Corp. Web business said its site was rendered largely inaccessible for six hours overnight Saturday, then again for 12 hours starting Sunday night, after its servers lost power and backup generators failed. Instead of their user profile pages, MySpace visitors were offered a PacMan game to play while the company struggled to get the site running again. A company spokeswoman would not estimate how much ad revenue MySpace lost during the down time.

And tanning salons? People don’t want to catch rays indoors.

“It’s been really slow,” said Meghan Pearson, who works at Bare Tan in Corona del Mar. “It’s just like tanning in the real sun. It’s hot outside, so people probably don’t want to get out in the heat and then tan inside the bed.”

One exception to the outdoors rule is water: the beach, the pool, the water park.

“It’s been phenomenal,” said Michele Wischmeyer, spokeswoman for Knott’s Soak City in Buena Park. “We have had a fantastic summer from the beginning of the season. Even before this record-breaking heat, we had record-breaking days.”

The park’s best shot at beating the heat is a new ride, Pacific Spin, which sends rafters down a 132-foot-long tunnel, then drops them 75 feet into a six-story funnel.

Its sister park, Knott’s Berry Farm, is seeing attendance peak in the morning and evening. To spur business, admission is reduced after 4 p.m. At the Orange County Fair, half-price “beat the heat” prices are being offered from noon to 4 p.m.

The less adventurous are heading to the store, where they’re snatching up amenities to make life cooler.

At the Lowe’s store in Burbank, workers had restocked summer goods before the weekend in preparation for more record-breaking temperatures.

But by early Sunday afternoon, all 200 air-conditioning units and 100 fans were sold out, leaving hot and weary shoppers Monday to try to make do with ceiling fans, misting systems, even garden hoses and oscillating sprinklers, all of which were flying off the shelves, a store manager said.

Over the weekend, it seemed as if every other shopping cart sported a new air-conditioning unit or fan, operations manager Ahmad Bassiri said.

“We used to have misting fans, but we’ve sold out of those, as well,” Bassiri added. “We’ve had a ton of customers this morning and afternoon asking for air conditioners. We’re trying to get them in, we just can’t get them in fast enough.”

John Sablan, manager of a Wal-Mart store near Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, said his store had sold twice as many fans and air-conditioning units as usual for this time of year -- in part, he said, because people were buying in multiples.

Juice, water, Gatorade, car windshield shades, Freon and warm-weather clothing are also flying off the shelves. Hats, sandals, shorts and tank tops are being sold almost as fast as workers can stock them, Sablan said.

“With the amount of coolers and beach towels we’re selling, I get the feeling that people are going up in the hills or other places to get away from the heat,” Sablan said. “It’s been quite incredible.”

What’s more, he said, shopping has turned into a family affair.

“I had a mom in here with three kids who said, ‘It’s so hot, we just came in to get away from the heat,’ ” Sablan said. And she wasn’t just browsing: “She was still buying something.”

Others are opting for cool snacks, such as Frappuccinos and ice cream.

Angelato Cafe in Santa Monica, which offers nearly 100 flavors of gelato, has hired two more people in the last three weeks because business has increased nearly 20%, store spokesman Paul Gor said.

“I guess because of the heat, more people want to eat ice cream,” he said.

And don’t forget Fido. Muttropolis, which sells pet products at shops in Newport Beach, San Diego County and Tucson, is offering a doggie water bed with a cooling core that keep dogs from getting overheated.

“They aren’t just gimmicky, they actually serve a purpose,” said Muttropolis co-owner Janet McCulley. “There is a boxer, as we speak, laying on the cooling mat.... God knows I could use one right now.”

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Times staff writers Abigail Goldman, Roger Vincent, Chris Gaither, Ronald D. White and Claire Hoffman contributed to this report.