Anaheim Tourists Go Shopping in Other Cities : Finances: City dismayed by its loss of sales tax revenue. Officials search for ways to turn their mall into an attraction rather than a turn-off.

Nearly every hour, outside of just about any of the major hotels in the city, lines of people begin forming at the bus stops.

These people, mostly tourists, have seen Disneyland, splashed in the hotel pool and are now in the mood to shop.

Australian biochemist Hubert Fong is one of them. Last week, he and his family had planned to spend maybe $2,000, enough for his son, Simon, to buy the latest Michael Jordan fashions and to cover souvenirs for friends back in Melbourne.

Where do the Fongs and others go to spend their thousands?

City officials, who have been looking at shrinking balance sheets and thinking about slashing unprecedented numbers of workers from the municipal payroll, say they go anyplace except Anaheim.

With every load of tourists carted away by private bus companies for shopping and entertainment outside the city limits, council members say, Anaheim--which has been without a major shopping mall for years--is losing badly needed sales tax revenue, the city’s largest source of cash.

Last month, Anaheim recorded its largest quarterly drop in tax revenue in a decade--more than $2 million. And city administrators, who refer to the flight of tourist and resident shoppers from Anaheim as “leakage,” say the city’s share of sales tax revenue has been seriously eroding over the years, adding up to a $13-million loss in the past 10 years.

Two years ago, a study by an outside development consultant said the city’s lack of a major retail center cost it an estimated $139 million every year in potential sales.

“When you see those buses leaving Anaheim,” Mayor Fred Hunter said last week, “it makes you want to throw up. The tourists are going to Costa Mesa to spend their money. They load ‘em up every day, and it’s off to South Coast Plaza.”

The mayor said he ventures to neighboring Brea Mall to get what he needs. “There is no question about it,” Hunter said. “We are losing millions. We have to get Anaheim Plaza going.”

What to do about Anaheim Plaza, the city’s largest and aging shopping center, has been dogging city officials for more than a decade. That’s when sales began taking serious tumbles, Robinson’s department store abandoned its anchor position for greener environs in Santa Ana and gleaming new malls in surrounding cities began competing for growing residential communities and the lucrative tourist market.

These days, the plaza parking lot stands noticeably empty and its marquee off Euclid Street trumpets Wednesday night bingo, not hot sales or new merchandise.

Its attractiveness to area residents and tourists has been so dismal that a major shopping shuttle service stopped bringing tourists to the plaza about eight months ago.

“It was very slow,” said Ricardo Cepeda, operations manager for Yellow Cab’s shopping shuttle, which serves Anaheim’s major hotels. Cepeda said there is more demand for transportation to and from Santa Ana’s MainPlace, where shoppers flock to Nordstrom or Robinson’s stores.

Cepeda’s hotel service operates from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays. During major conventions and at the peak of the tourist season, he said, his 20-passenger buses carry full loads out of Anaheim every half-hour.

Gary Mays, who drives the Pacific Coast Sightseeing coach to South Coast Plaza, estimates that in his seven years at the wheel he has carried “hundreds of thousands” of people from the Disneyland Hotel, the Anaheim Hilton and Towers hotel and the seven other lodging spots on his daily 28-mile route out of Anaheim and down the Costa Mesa Freeway.

“When I pick them up (after a day at the mall), they have shopping carts full of shoes and all kinds of stuff,” Mays said. “When people want to go shopping, they want to go shopping.”

A Pacific Coast tour operator said that during peak summertime operations its buses, which also provide tours to Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana and Long Beach, carry 1,500 people per day out of Anaheim.

Tourists aren’t the only ones leaving to spend their money.

In what is believed to be the most recent survey of Anaheim residents measuring attitudes and habits on an array of issues, from politics to shopping preferences, a 1986 survey found that 81% of the 300 people questioned went outside the city on their most recent trip to a mall or shopping center.

“There is quite a bit of leakage from Anaheim residents,” said Ron Rothschild, the city’s administrative services manager. “For a lot of daily sundries, people will shop their local neighborhood. But when it comes to bigger-ticket items, they shop at the Brea Mall or elsewhere.”

Rothschild said the city still maintains the county’s largest share of sales tax revenue of all the cities. But, he said, what was once a commanding share--hovering around 14% of all taxable retail sales revenue in the county--has dropped to about 11% in the past decade. Rothschild said that loss has amounted to a $13-million drop to the city in tax revenue.

The presence of Disneyland, the hotels and supporting restaurants have kept the revenue stream flowing to the city, but city staff and council members have been attempting to find a formula that will keep tourists and resident shoppers inside the city limits.

Declining revenue from the sales tax and hotel occupancy tax have contributed to recent budget problems at City Hall, where managers have targeted social programs for budget cuts and once considered laying off about 187 municipal workers. About 140 families with children in city-operated day-care facilities are being told that the six facilities offering after-school and summertime care to about 180 children will close after the current school year.

In an effort to plug the city’s retail leak, the City Council included Anaheim Plaza, built in 1957, in a 350-acre redevelopment district.

Brad Hobson, senior project manager with the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, said the plaza’s owner, the State Teachers Retirement System of Sacramento, is working with developers to bring a new retail plan to the plaza.

“I don’t know exactly what form it will take,” said Hobson, adding that it will be six months before a conceptual plan is presented. “It’s going to have to be a project with a unique retail market niche. It’s a tough project no matter how you look at it.”