HUNTINGTON BEACH : Merchants Say Bad Year Will Get Worse

Sitting at a cluttered desk in the back of one of his four beachside shops, Brem Sakhrani punched figures into a calculator, scribbling the results onto a pad.

He stopped figuring momentarily and shook his head. “Business has been 60 to 70% off,” Sakhrani said. “I’ve had to put everything on sale. I’m selling T-shirts that I normally sell for $13.98, for $8.98. That’s barely cost.”

The winter and early spring months are a typically slow time of year for downtown merchants. But for many of them, this past off-season has been the worst ever, complicated by the municipal pier being closed for a second year, a major oil spill that closed beaches for a month, and the incessant clangor and clutter of redevelopment construction.

And now they fear that one-third of their anticipated thriving summer business, on which they are pinning their hopes to compensate for a dismal winter, may be in jeopardy.

Beginning Aug. 7, as much as 150 feet of beach and ocean on either side of the pier will be fenced off for about 18 months while the aging landmark is demolished and reconstructed, city engineer Bob Eichblatt said Thursday. The demolition will begin a day after the OP Pro championships, one of the world’s most prestigious surfing events.

“Between the oil spill, construction and the closing of the pier, a massive amount of business has been lost in Huntington Beach,” said Ron Abdel, co-owner of Jack’s Surf Shop, a fixture on Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway for 19 years. Sales at his shop are down 40%, he said.

Looking over clothing racks packed full of wet suits and T-shirts, Abdel added: “As you can see, we’re way backed up on our stock. . . . You always expect a good summer to make up for the off-months.”

But if they’re going to close down the pier to begin construction this summer, I don’t know how some of these (other shop owners) are going to survive.”

Some downtown business owners have been reimbursed for spill-related losses by American Trading Transportation, the firm whose tanker spewed 394,000 gallons of Alaskan crude into the ocean off Huntington Beach on Feb. 7. However, they said their damage payments have fallen well short of what the disaster cost them.

The merchants say the spill exacerbated the decrease in foot traffic caused within the past two years because of noisy, unsightly construction and a pier that has not been accessible.

Although some restaurants have fared well throughout the winter months, most shops have seen a drop of between 20% and 60% in business, said Natalie Kotsch, spokeswoman for the Huntington Beach Downtown Merchants’ Guild.

Sakhrani said business has dropped of at his surf shop and three bikini stores on Pacific Coast Highway since the city closed the pier in July, 1988, after the structure was ravaged by storms. The lull worsened dramatically during the past four months, and he said he was banking on a bustling summer to reverse the trend.

“My customers are surfers and tourists,” he said. “And with no pier, and with all this construction going on, they’ll all go down to Newport Beach where it’s all clean and nice.”

The Planning Commission, in approving permits and the environmental-impact report for the rebuilding project earlier this week, authorized city engineers to fence off as much of the beach and surf as is needed for the project.

For safety reasons, Eichblatt said, city officials “have no choice” but to fence off a swath of beach from the shoreline to the asphalt pathway.

“That’s the best area to surf in Southern California,” said a dismayed Scott Banuelos, 27. When they are forced away from the prime pier-area surf, Banuelos and several other surfers interviewed said, they plan to move their boards about half a mile to the north or south.

Nevertheless, many of the surfers said they believe that sacrificing the best waves for 18 months is an acceptable price to get a new pier built.

The current pier, built in 1914, “is sick-looking,” surfer Joel Nelson said. “If they’re going to build a new one, it’s worth it.”