With the BP oil spill now on day 84, we decided to check back with retailers to see how they were faring.
Unfortunately, what was bad has now become a lot worse in some cases. Retailers are suffering, BP isn’t paying claims fast enough and some manufacturers have not paid a lot of attention to the area, shop owners say.
Topping that off, the start of the hurricane season has brought waves. But many surfers and retailers along the Gulf now can’t surf in their own backyard.
“It looks like a cow came over and (pooped) on the beach if you want to know the truth,” said Johnny Mcelroy, who owns Blonde John’s, a surf, skate and skimboard shop in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Mcelroy said business is down 40% to 70% depending on the day in what is usually his busiest time of year.
Gulf Shores is a summer vacation destination and with beaches closed or advisories posted, people aren’t visiting.
“I have been open for 10 years and have had a 25% increase every year since I started. I have already put my balls on the chopping block to move.”
(Right: Johnny Mcelroy of Blonde John’s in Gulf Shores, Alabama.)
At Innerlight Surf and Skate Shop, which has stores in Gulf Shores, Alabama and in Pensacola, Destin, and Gulf Breeze, Florida, business was mostly flat last month, before the oil reached Florida.
Now that it has hit the shore, business is hurting.
According to Pensacola store manager Shannon Hampton, some stores are down 50% and others are down 30% to 40%. When surf camp cancellations and no shows are included, business is down about 80% overall.
“We are anticipating it getting worse as we get into summer and winter,” said Hampton, who added in Pensacola the beaches currently have advisories posted, but are still open.
News reports show Gulf beaches are open and swimming is not prohibited but swimmers are advised to avoid coming into contact with oil, whether in the water or on land.
Sometimes the oil is visible, sometimes there are tar balls and other days it is just the same beautiful beach they are used to, Hampton said.
The recent Hurricane Alex brought waves that pushed oil onto the beaches in Pensacola. She said she has sold a few surfboards, but SUP sales, which initially rose after the spill, have since declined.
Shannon’s husband, Matt Hampton, who manages Innerlight’s Gulf Shores location, said people are wary of stand up paddling now, since the ocean feeds into the bays and waterways.
At Innerlight Gulf Shores, Matt said the store went from being down 30% to down 50%. During the usually busy July 4th weekend, hotels and condos in town had only a 50% occupancy rate.
(Right: The skate section at Innerlight’s Gulf Shores, Alabama store.)
See page two for Texas report, claims problems
He also said schools are starting earlier this year, during the second week of August, cutting his summer selling season shorter. Matt is hoping once school starts, people will come in for things they need, and that skateboard sales may take off.
“Skate sales have been somewhat consistent,” he said. “I haven’t seen a spike yet, but that’s probably because no one has a lot of income since most people have jobs that revolve around the ocean.”
All of the other shops I spoke with along the Gulf in Florida and Alabama were also experiencing a steeper decline in business.
Tourism down in Texas
In Galveston, Texas, a month ago, William “Boog” Cram of Ohana Surf and Skate Shop said he was seeing more traffic from people going to Texas instead of Florida or Louisiana, but said business is now is just status quo.
“We are still in that 2007 mode – still having respectable numbers, but tourism is down about 30%,” he said.
Most of his sales are coming from his surf camps. Attendance is down, but they increased the total number of camps, up from three times a week to five.
Boog is starting sales earlier and marketing more than usual. So far, oil has not shown up on beaches in Galveston, but Boog said the other day they spotted the first tar balls, most likely off a ship that was passing by.
For those who have been affected, people like Matt Hampton at Innerlight say that business may turn around.
“I anticipate once claims are made, just like after a hurricane hits and insurance is paid, people will spend money again,” he said.
Complicated claims process
However, most of the shops that have been impacted and filed claims to BP say the process has been painful.
“I have been getting the runaround for five to six weeks,” said Kevin Faoutas of Aqua Surf Shop in Miramar, Florida. Aqua was down about 80% a few weeks ago.
Just recently he reached a BP adjuster who told him the $30,000 claim that he filed for one month alone was forwarded to BP’s Louisiana office to a section that specializes in large losses.
Last week after he called to follow up, the adjuster said he would only be getting a check for $1,200.
“I was speechless,” he said. “But I am hearing this everywhere and we don’t know what to do. He said part of the problem is that BP looked at 2009 sales – Aqua’s worst year because of the economy. Faoutas said his business had been turning in 2010, and was more in line with sales for his 2008 season, when the economy was better.
See Page 3 for more about the claims process, if brands are helping
Shannon Hampton from Innerlight said she just filed a claim for Innerlight’s surf camp losses, and that the process was extremely confusing.
“It’s a bunch of gibberish we don’t really understand and we have to go through old records,” she said, adding that they started filing claims on June 16th and got their first meeting with a BP official this past week.
(Right: Innerlight Surf Camp.)
Luckily for Innerlight, camper losses and cancellations are easier to prove than estimated lost sales.
Tim Carr at Fluid Surf Shop in Fort Walton, Florida got lucky and received his May claim in less than a month. But he also said the process is slow.
“We just have to keep submitting a claim a month,” he said.
What brands are – and aren’t doing
With claims coming in slowly and retailers suffering, some brands are being more forgiving when it comes to receivables, but most shops say they haven’t heard directly from manufacturers.
“A couple of companies have called because I can’t pay them,” said Johnny Mcelroy of Blonde John’s. “FCS and Gorilla grip have called because they are concerned. Volcom has called and Rip Curl has called. Some of bigger companies don’t (seem to) care, but we appreciate the help we have gotten.”
(Right: Johnny McElroy of Blonde John’s.)
Fluid Surf Shop’s Tim Carr said some brands have talked him out of buying goods, or “are afraid we are going to go out of business,” he said. “Others brands, though, have said they’d help us get through it. Guys like FCS and Channel Islands have said they’ll help us in any way they can.”
William “Boog” Cram from Ohana in Galveston said his Volcom rep has been checking in. “He checks in like clockwork once a month,” he said.
Every shop I spoke to said they’d love to get support from the brands. On July 1st, Jimmy Buffet hosted a free benefit concert in Gulf Shores that brought a lot of people to the area.
Matt Hampton said he’d love to get some surf musicians, guys like Timmy Curren or Donavan Frankenreiter to come play in the area. “No companies have contacted me, but just the last week I shot some emails to our rep at Billabong and he is forwarding some info over to California,” Matt said. “Along with economy being still down, I am sure it’s hard for people to reach out to us, but it would be amazing if we could get some people down here to support us.”
“The big thing is just work with us,” added Mcelroy. “I owe money to a few companies and we had already a bad January and February and now we have oil on our beaches. We’ll pay you, but times are really tough and we are all on this together.”
See page 4 for impact of oil dispersants on surfers
Oil dispersants a concern
Currently, there are a few tropical storm systems that have pushed waves to the Gulf. For shops like Fluid in Fort Walton, Florida, board sales recently got a quick lift with the waves, but people are worried about surfing in possibly contaminated water.
“There are surfers resisting good waves because they are scared. I don’t know if ignorance is bliss, but when you look at the water it looks beautiful. You just know stuff is out there but I guess I’m just living with it,” Carr said.
According to Johnny Mcelroy, Hurricane Alex, which brought head high surf, also brought currents and winds that pushed the visible oil away from his local beaches. He said he has recently been surfing Alabama Point, a 200-yard point break on the Westside of Perdido Pass that separates eastern Alabama from Florida.
“It’s in the back of your mind,” he said of the oil, “but it’s like dealing with sharks. You know they’re there, but you gotta’ surf — it’s a way of life. It’s just a new way of life and it really sucks.”
According to Matt McCain, marketing director for the Surfrider Foundation, surfers need to be aware not only of oil, but of contaminants caused from cleaning dispersants being used to clean up the oil.
tracking real-time updates of oil released into the Gulf.
Click on the image to see the live meter.
Michael Sturdivant, who is the Chairman of the Emerald Coast Surfrider Chapter, which covers most of the Northern Gulf, said there have been a lot of problems with testing in the area.
“A few months into the spill, there was still no water quality tests being done in certain areas, and there was advertising saying water is clean and beaches are safe. The problem is they were not testing for oil or dispersant related compounds.”
Sturdivant said notifications are getting better, but Surfrider is securing an independent testing lab in Washington that was used during the Exxon Valdez spill. But the process is timely and expensive – costing $350 per test and samples have to be shipped over ice.
Sturdivant said he knows of two people who have become ill after surfing. In Pensacola, he said a girl paddled into oil and went to the hospital after burning her eyes, most likely as a result of the dispersants in the water.
“As surfers we can literally taste the water, so we know what’s going on a lot of time before officials do,” Sturdivant said. “We are going to have to deal with this now for a while. If people could sell their houses right now, a lot of them would move.”
