Holiday Sales Dry Up With Mud in Laguna

A week after torrents of mud and water turned the business district into a veritable ghost town, residents and merchants are crying in frustration: Laguna Beach is cleaned up and open for business.

Merchants are complaining that with the last big shopping weekend before Christmas just days away, tourists seem to be avoiding Laguna Beach for fear that the streets are still muddy and swamped.

Not true, officials say.

“Everything is back to normal and in working order,” said Police Sgt. Ray Lardie.

Laguna Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway, which were closed after the storm, are open, he said, and only a small section of the boardwalk at Main Beach remains closed.

But many merchants are worried that the typical crowds are staying away during what’s traditionally one of the busiest--the economically important--times of the year.

“For the past week this town has been totally dead,” said Leslie DeDuijtsche of the Greeter’s Corner Restaurant on Main Beach. “We have had more sea gulls than people. We are all standing here looking at each other saying, ‘What is going on?’ ”

Shawn Palek, manager of the Renaissance Culture Cuisine restaurant, said business has been awful lately and blames news media accounts of the heavy storm that hit the : “I think some of the reporters made it sound very bad. People are coming by and asking if we are open. We were open for business the next day after the storm.”

The storm blasted its way across Orange County on Dec. 7, causing mudslides, flooding and road closures.

Laguna Beach was particularly hard hit with nearly 8 inches of rain that weekend. The day after the storm, residents, weary cleanup crews and merchants used shovels, wheelbarrows and any other tools they could find to scoop the layers of earth.

Residents rebounded quickly from the rains. They have become adept at disaster management, having rebuilt after the firestorm that damaged or destroyed more than 400 homes four years ago and the devastating flood thereafter.

“The city is used to it,” said Amanda Oliviera, a clerk at Bushard Pharmacy, which has also seen a drop in business over the last week. “We are still the same village and it’s a great place to come shopping.”

Last Friday, merchants hardest hit began posting “El Nino sale” signs to move goods damaged in the storm, said Howard Levin, executive director of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce. “We are running a campaign called ‘We are open for business,’ ” he said, adding that some stores have discounts as high as 60%.

“The stores are putting signs in their windows if they have distressed merchandise,” Levin said. “In some cases it’s just the packaging, but they will still put it on sale.”

Just two businesses out of about 150 in the downtown were closed this week and most of the restaurants haven’t missed a beat, he said.

This year’s storm also kicked off an effort to prevent future damage.

The Wild Oats Market on Broadway, two blocks from the beach, was one of a few retailers who emerged unscathed because it had installed plastic shields, encased in steel brackets, across storefronts to keep the water and mud out.

“We had the floodgates up and nothing came in the store,” said Richard Miller, produce manager.

Nearby business owners began inquiring about the flood barriers after the storm, he said.

“They were amazed we had no damage at all and they got flooded,” Miller said.

The chamber has recruited a local architect and a construction company to design and mass produce the flood shields for local businesses, Levin said.

“Some of the merchants who had it had no damage whatsoever,” Levin said. “It’s been available, but no one moved on it before--or they didn’t know where to go to buy it.”