Last-Minute Buying Surge Isn’t Enough : Shopping: One Ventura store reports a Saturday sales record. But many retailers say the holiday season was disappointing.

A surge of last-minute shoppers helped Ventura County retailers put some sparkle on an otherwise lackluster Christmas season last weekend, but even though the final three shopping days exceeded expectations, most store managers said the season as a whole didn’t measure up to last year.

Saturday, especially, was busy at many stores, with at least one, the JC Penney unit in Ventura, reporting all-time record sales that day.

Cheryl Tovar, the store’s general merchandise manager, declined to give figures, but said Saturday’s sales broke all single-day records at the Penney store, which opened in the mid-1960s.

“The entire weekend was really crowded,” she said. “In fact, thanks to the cold weather, we just about ran out of coats and other outer wear.”

Despite the strong finish, Tovar said she didn’t know whether this year’s holiday sales equaled those of Christmas, 1989. Store manager Jim Word said last week that “we’ll probably come out about even” with last year.

Jay Jones, general manager of the K mart store in Ventura, said his store had an excellent final weekend. “But in the weeks leading up to that, we didn’t come up to our projections,” he said.

As did Tovar at Penney’s, Jones reported strong demand for coats and sweaters. Among toys, he said Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle items moved well.

“In view of the soft economy and the situation in the Persian Gulf, I’d say it was a good Christmas,” Jones said.

At the Sears, Roebuck store in Oxnard, manager Don Facciono said, “The weekend was extremely good throughout the store. Having Christmas fall on a Tuesday was a retailer’s dream.”

He added: “It was a matter of ‘everything goes.’ If we were out of something, the customer got something else.”

But although the weekend was stronger than expected, “it didn’t make up for the season as a whole.” Facciono described this year’s holiday business as “good, but not up to our expectations.”

Steve Hoxmeier, manager of the Target discount store in Simi Valley, said his store did better than expected last weekend. Right up to Christmas Day, Hoxmeier said, Target benefited from customers’ price-consciousness this Christmas.

“I would say we had a better season this year than last. Besides the long final weekend, we also had a longer season, because Thanksgiving came a week earlier than last year.”

At Hoffritz for Cutlery in The Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks, $40 Swiss Army knives, $100 electric shavers, $130 manicure sets and $170 sets of knives accompanied by wood blocks sold well as the season ended, said manager Tammy Swanstrom.

“The final four days, starting last Friday, were quite good for us,” Swanstrom said. “If it hadn’t been for a slow November, we would have exceeded last year. As it was, we came fairly close.”

And Suzanne Crittendon, manager of the AT&T; Phone Center in Ventura’s Buenaventura Mall, said she not only sold many gift phones in the final shopping weekend, but found time to fax a dozen free messages to service personnel in the Persian Gulf.

“Throughout the Christmas season, we’ve been sending 10 to 12 messages a day, seven days a week” as part of AT&T;’s Desert Fax program, she said. “One lady comes in almost every afternoon to fax a message to her husband.”

As for the retail outlook for 1991, Sears’ Facciono said, “I feel the year will start out with everybody being cautious--until Jan. 15. If the Middle East crisis is settled, I expect people to loosen up.”