ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : At Malls, Debacle Saps Spirits, Not Spending : Consumers: Shoppers, though angry and fearful, seem to be buying presents at a pretty healthy rate.
‘Tis the season to be jolly . . . just don’t mention the B-word to holiday crowds in Orange County’s glittering shopping meccas.
The declaration of bankruptcy by one of the nation’s richest counties hasn’t put a bite on most people’s Christmas budgets just yet--but it has taken a chunk out of their Yuletide spirit.
“It certainly seems to cast a dull glow over the county in general,” said 39-year-old Mark Lerner of Costa Mesa, a real estate attorney who shopped with his wife and daughter Sunday at South Coast Plaza. “I think Orange County’s glamour has certainly been stripped away.”
The greatest municipal bond debacle in U.S. history seems so far to have pounded residents’ pride more than their pocketbooks.
“I think people are a little embarrassed to be living in Orange County,” said Dale Jenkins, 35, as he cooled his heels at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. “Between the earthquake, the recession and now this. . . .”
Jenkins, a financial analyst for an aerospace company, said he still was “spending away”--he’d taken one load of gifts to his car and was working up the energy to take another. But he sees trouble ahead, possibly in the form of a tax hike.
Sure, the parking lots were packed at the two posh malls; the lines to Santa’s lap were long and winding. Yet beneath the buying bustle and good cheer, other, less pleasant emotions lurked: fear of what is to come--and seething anger.
The way many shoppers see it, former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron took the people’s money and lost it in a giant, unsupervised craps game, sticking them with the tab.
“How many of those (tax payments) of mine were made out to R. L. ‘Bob’ Citron?” Lerner said. One of his friends, he said, made his check this year out to “Boob” Citron.
“I try not to think about it,” said Adele Lynas, 40, of San Juan Capistrano, who sat outside Nordstrom at South Coast Plaza. “I work full-time. Both me and my husband try to make ends meet. As taxpayers, we count on the county to do good by (us) and I don’t think they are.”
Lynas’ friend Suzan Perez said she can’t afford not to think about the county’s crisis. She is a calendar clerk for South Orange County Municipal Court and wonders where her next few paychecks will be coming from.
“As you can tell, that’s not my shopping bag,” she said pointing to Lynas’ overflowing sack. Perez’s friends and relatives will be seeing a lot more cards than packages from her this year, she said.
Although there was scant evidence at major Orange County malls Sunday of a falloff in consumer demand, the bankruptcy announcement came just as businesses were recovering from several lean years of recession.
There’s probably enough pent-up consumer demand to buffer the retail trade from the county’s financial problems, said Tony Cherbak, an accountant who follows the retail industry from Costa Mesa for Deloitte & Touche.
“I suspect it will have some impact on sales, but it’s too early to determine just how bad it will be,” Cherbak said. “Right now, it’s just some really bad news coming at a time when people were really feeling pretty optimistic. What’s bad is that people will start to fear that they’re going to be taxed at a higher rate.
“The other thing is that we’ve had fires, riots, earthquakes and a recession,” Cherbak said. “It’s just not something you want to see at the most important season of the (retail) year.”
Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this story.
