Spring Break Goes Bust in Palm Springs

Easter Week as this community has known and endured it--that tradition of youthful revelry, the stuff of legend and song about Where the Boys (and Girls) Are, of cruisin’ and boozin’--is being laid to rest here this week.

It was pushing 40, struggling with its own midlife crisis, a victim of clogged arteries and increasingly sociopathic tendencies. It succumbed with some members of its family at its side, “breakers” who hoped that they could still breathe life into it.

But the doctor had already pulled the plug, in effect, when the city banned cruising on the main drag during both weekends of Easter Week, spring break’s traditional peaks. Although the flutter of a heartbeat was maintained by midweek cruisers--teen-agers allowed a last gasp of screaming and yelling from the back of pickups--Easter Week had been denied its most notorious lifeblood and will never again be the same.

Survivors include local residents, police and the Harvest Festival, the city’s newest offspring, designed to attract older visitors to downtown. Indeed, the city hopes a new Easter Week tradition will rise from the asphalt: a street fair just old-fashioned enough and classy enough to draw a different brand of tourist, someone who will spend money without holding the city hostage.

But mourners said Easter Week--for better or for worse--will never be the same.

“I could tell, the minute I drove into town Friday night, that something was different,” said Juliana Gaulden, 23, of San Diego State University. “I understand they wanted to put restrictions on it, but they’ve gone overboard. Obviously, we’re not welcome here anymore.

“I won’t come back next year,” she said--a refrain voiced repeatedly by young people here this week. “I’m making reservations right away to go to Lake Havasu next year.”

The city’s experiment to close off Palm Canyon Drive has proved a two-edged sword, limiting rowdiness but hurting business:

* Police Chief Don Burnett said his officers had issued only 259 citations during the first five days of the 10-day festival period--compared to 7,000 normally handed out over the 10-day period in past years.

“I’m very pleased and pleasantly surprised,” Burnett said. Not only had he budgeted 30% less overtime this year, but by midweek he was releasing even more officers from duty.

* Hotel occupancy is down about a third on weekdays. Eric Langmann, president of the Palm Springs Hotel Assn., said business at his Travelodge is off by half--from 60% occupancy last year to 30% occupancy this week.

“This is supposed to be our season, and it used to be the town would pretty much run full (occupancy) this week,” Langmann said. “But we are in transition. We either bite the bullet and move forward--it’ll take three to five years before it works--or we go back. And whenever we talk about ‘going back,’ everyone cringes.”

* T-shirt shop owners say they are no longer cashing in during Easter Week, which they count on to carry them through the rest of the year. “The last three years have been downhill, but this is the worst year yet,” said Shahla Shalizi. Sales have barely topped $1,000, she said.

Diane Biggs, who owns a chain of bikini shops from Santa Monica to San Diego, opened one here just last year. “We’re not doing as well as last year,” she said with a sigh. “I think I’m going to have to open a store at Havasu.”

* Other merchants, however, say their sales have increased as the streets were given over to better-heeled shoppers--including Palm Springs residents who ventured downtown during Easter Week for the first time in years.

“I had six locals come in and buy things--and they said they hadn’t been on Palm Canyon Drive on an Easter Week for 10 years,” said John Connell, co-owner of FaBuLous.

Joy Meredith owns Crystal Fantasy and said she loves this new edition of Spring Break, even though she was initially opposed to closing Palm Canyon Drive for the festival.

“I had fewer people in the store, and fewer sales, but I had more dollar volume,” Meredith said. “And that’s the key, isn’t it? Work less and make more money.”

Other merchants said they had noticed no difference this year in sales--but they do miss the excitement of Easter Weeks past.

“This year is so totally different,” Kay Ruffalo, manager of a downtown women’s clothing store, said wistfully. “When the kids are here, this town is crazy and wild. It was fun to watch them. You know, we were young once.”

City officials said merchants and hoteliers might have to brace for at least three years of a business downturn during the transition.

“This was a good first step for us,” said Julie Baumer, the city’s director of marketing and promotion. “We’re well on our way. Families are starting to come back.”

She said she hopes that merchants soured on the transition will bear with it: “We can’t do everything the first year. The fact that every merchant is not thriving is not a surprise.”

The health of Easter Week here has been in slow decline for some years. The tradition started robustly--a popular destination for, as one merchant said, college students with “Daddy’s Porsche and gold card.”

But in the 1980s, partyers pushed the city to its limits, all but seizing Palm Canyon Drive as their own. Cruisers in sports cars and pickups caused gridlock, and they hooted and hollered at young people on the sidewalk, who returned their shouts and screams. The scene also included motorcycles adorned with young women wearing G-string bikinis.

What was meant to be fun turned ugly in 1986, when a street melee erupted after a woman flashed her breasts to a crowd of young men goading her.

Easter Week’s condition grew critical in 1991, when then-Mayor Sonny Bono and the City Council outlawed the notorious G-string thongs and three of the favorite sports among cruisers: “mooning,” shooting water guns and lobbing water balloons at one another and pedestrians.

Last year, with enforcement of the new state helmet law, motorcyclists were effectively barred from picking up girls from the sidewalk for quick and wild rides down the boulevard.

This year, the city closed Palm Canyon Drive through downtown, introduced the Desert Harvest Days and Wildflower Festival, and promoted Lake Havasu as the more receptive destination for youthful revelers. Cruising was replaced by a farmers market, arts and crafts displays, street sales, and even a potbellied pig costume and talent contest.

And just like that, Easter Week has gone from G-strings to G-rated.

“It’s been a big success,” said Mayor Lloyd Maryanov. “This is a building block for years to come. We’re not trying to kill Spring Break, just change it. We want the college kids to come--with their parents and their younger brothers and sisters.”

The town’s tone had clearly changed this week. At the Holiday Inn Palm Mountain Resort, college-aged men and women sat around the pool--sipping iced tea, not beer. “We’re here for the sun, not for the cruising,” one woman said.

Heather Wascher, 21, from San Diego State, sipped a frozen concoction at Chillers, downtown’s most popular 21-and-over nightclub, and brooded. “We used to be able to walk down the street for a good time, and now you’ve got to go into the bars,” she said. “It’s sad.”

Added Suzanne Cooper, 25, of the Bay Area: “You come here to watch people, and now there’s hardly anybody to watch. I knew they were trying to close the town down, but I didn’t think it would be this dead.”

Even the local kids are disheartened. Garry Gonzalez, 19, called this “the worst Easter Break ever. It’s like just a regular week. It sucks.” And he said he might, out of desperation, head over to the new miniature golf course and fun center at nearby Cathedral City for some action.

That’s how quiet the town is. Even the cops are shaking their heads.

“I don’t know if you want to quote me, but I’m actually bored,” Officer Bill Blohm said.

Officer John Booth told of meeting a young woman from Sweden who had heard of Palm Springs’ reputation and finally made it this year, only to find herself in the middle of Palm Canyon Drive for the festival, incredulous.

“She was next to the garlic booth and asked me, ‘Is this it?’ ”