A packed oceanfront on Independence Day is exactly what beach businesses bank on to boost their bottom lines.
“Fourth of July weekend, it`s supposed to be busy, busy, busy,” says Ry’s Restaurant worker Jeffrey Miller.
The folks at Ry’s Restaurant say this July 4 weekend may be more of a bust.
“This year, it`s kind of slower,” Miller says.
Miller says he knows part of the reason why.
“Some of the cause for people not wanting to come here was because of that incident,” he says.
During the now infamous College Beach Week in April, two days of fun ended in countless fights and stabbings.
“People are keeping their kids away from the beach because they don`t want them to come down for shootings, stabbings and robberies. They want them to come down here for fun,” Miller says.
Sa’id Laghrani at Sal’s Pizza says the beach weekend shouldn’t scare people off.
“I think 95 percent of the people who came down here were nice,” he says. “I know we had some problems but it was mostly because of those few elements from somewhere. They come down here and they create trouble.”
Laghrani says he’s not worried about the upcoming beach weekend despite that the flyers have been making rounds on social media for days.
“A lot of people say they’re not looking forward to another one, but personally I am because we had a very good experience with the last beach week,” Laghrani says.
While other businesses may disagree with his optimism, most say there’s one overwhelming factor that affects everyone’s business.
“People usually say it’s location, location, location. For us, it’s weather, weather, weather,” Sal says.
