Merchants Hit by Spill Push for Aid : Beach business: Retailers along the coast who have seen sales plunge ask the governor to designate disaster areas, thus creating state tax benefits.

For many beach businesses reliant on tourists and surfers, the oil spill has been more than an environmental disaster.

“We have lost at least 80% of our business,” said Jacky Mukhi, who manages four stores on Pacific Coast Highway just north of the Huntington Beach Pier.

About 15 local merchants attended a press conference Friday morning with Huntington Beach Mayor Tom Mays and State Controller Gray Davis. They joined the two officials in a renewed request to Gov. George Deukmejian to declare locations affected by the spill as disaster areas. The governor has declined to take that action.

The stores Mukhi manages, which are owned by his uncle, sell T-shirts, sunglasses and souvenirs to tourists. But since the oil spill, they and surrounding stores have been deserted.

“The pier was already closed and now the beach is closed,” Mukhi said.

“It’s like Ghost Town USA,” said Adrienne Briggs, a bartender at Cagney’s by the Sea, a bar on Pacific Coast Highway.

By 2:15 p.m. Friday, the grand total in sales for the day was $14.88 at George’s Surf Center on Main Street just east of Pacific Coast Highway.

Although British Petroleum Corp. has offered to compensate businesses for their losses, Davis said he would be happier if government programs were in place to provide relief to businesses.

‘I cannot believe (the governor) has not shown the interest or the compassion or the humanity to drive 15 minutes down here from his home in Long Beach to see the situation,” Davis said.

Davis noted that the governor visited San Francisco after the earthquake and Stockton after the schoolyard shooting, but has not been to Huntington Beach.

Bob Gore, press secretary for the governor, said in a telephone interview from Sacramento on Friday that the comparisons are not valid.

“There’s no loss of life in this situation,” he said. “There was a tremendous loss of life in both those instances.”

Gore said Deukmejian has asked the office of emergency services to report on the need for declaring an emergency.

“The governor is very concerned about the spill,” Gore said.

Davis said that if the governor declares the area a disaster, businesses could deduct losses from their 1989 state income taxes, entitling them to an immediate deduction even though the losses occurred in the 1990 tax year.

Davis urged businesses affected by the spill to contact the county Office of Emergency Services to request help in making federal Small Business Administration low-interest loans available.