Surf and skate retailers along the Alabama and Florida Panhandle coast say the BP oil spill has gutted their busiest season of the year, and that a slow, confusing claims process is making a bad summer worse.
At Blonde John’s, a surf, skate and skimboard shop in Gulf Shores, Alabama, owner Johnny Mcelroy said business is down anywhere from 40 to 70 percent depending on the day, during what is normally his peak selling period. Mcelroy, who has run the shop for a decade and says he had seen roughly 25 percent annual growth every year until now, described the state of his usually pristine beach in blunt terms, saying it looked fouled and unrecognizable compared to a normal summer. He said the downturn has been severe enough that he has considered whether he can afford to keep the business where it is.
Regional Chain Also Hurting
Innerlight Surf and Skate Shop, which operates stores in Gulf Shores as well as Pensacola, Destin and Gulf Breeze, Florida, reported that business was mostly flat through last month, before oil made landfall on Florida beaches. Pensacola store manager Shannon Hampton said some Innerlight locations are now down 50 percent, with others down 30 to 40 percent. Once surf-camp cancellations and no-shows are factored in, she said, overall business is off by about 80 percent.
Further east, Kevin Faoutas of Aqua Surf Shop in Miramar, Florida, said his shop was also down roughly 80 percent at one point, and that BP’s claims process has been especially frustrating. Faoutas said he waited five to six weeks before reaching a BP adjuster about a $30,000 monthly-loss claim, only to be told the claim had been forwarded to a specialized large-loss office in Louisiana. When he followed up, he said, he was told he would receive a check for just $1,200. Faoutas said the adjuster indicated BP had based the payout on his 2009 sales figures — a down year for his business because of the broader economy — rather than his stronger 2010 numbers, which he said were tracking closer to his pre-recession 2008 season.
Hampton said Innerlight ran into similar confusion after filing a claim for lost surf-camp revenue. She said the shop began filing claims June 16 and did not get its first meeting with a BP official until this past week, describing the paperwork as difficult to parse without digging through old business records.
Vendors Reaching Out, but Bills Still Due
Mcelroy said several of Blonde John’s suppliers, including FCS, Gorilla Grip, Volcom and Rip Curl, have reached out directly as he has fallen behind on payments, while he said other larger companies have been less responsive. He credited the vendors who have worked with him for helping keep the shop afloat.
Mcelroy said Hurricane Alex, which passed through the Gulf in late June, brought heavy surf along with currents and winds that pushed visible oil away from his local beaches for a stretch, and that he has continued surfing at Alabama Point, a point break on the west side of Perdido Pass separating Alabama from Florida. He said the spill is never far from his mind while he is in the water, comparing the low-level anxiety to knowing sharks are nearby: manageable, but impossible to fully ignore, and now simply part of the routine for coastal surfers trying to hold onto both their businesses and their way of life.