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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
South Bay residents Jennifer Anderson and Jason Flohr shop for wedding rings with the assistance of Ray Wang at Towne Jewelers in Sunnyvale Town Center. Wang has said business in his store has been down since Christmas, but even more so since Sept. 11. Despite the recent terrorist attacks, the couple's plans for a June wedding remain steady. Anderson's philosophy is that you have to keep on living.
Rubbing It In
Sept. 11 attacks made a bad situation worse for Sunnyvale businesses
By Jesse Ducker
Some local businesses were hit financially by the events of Sept. 11. In most cases, however, these businesses were already reeling.
The downturn inspired Suzi Blackman, the president of Sunnyvale's Chamber of Commerce, to address the city council at its Sept. 25 meeting and implore Sunnyvale residents to continue to support Sunnyvale businesses in these times of economic hardship.
"The community needs to support these businesses," Blackman said later. "It's time for residents to step up to the plate."
Blackman conceded that many Sunnyvale businesses are experiencing trouble.
"It's unfair to say everything was the fault of Sept. 11," she said. "Sept. 11 multiplied what was already happening."
Ray Wang of Town Jewelers agrees. He said his store, located in Sunnyvale's Town Center Mall, has been experiencing problems since before last Christmas. He estimates business for his store is down 50 percent from last year at this time.
Wang said it's hard to tell how much business has fallen off since Sept. 11, since business in general has been down so much already. On top of the attacks and the nationwide economic downturn, Wang said his store has had to contend with the extensive construction that's under way in the Town Center, which he says has kept customers away.
"It's not going to get better until Target opens up next year," Wang said. "Then we'll have an anchor store."
Joe Antuzzi, owner of Il Postale, an Italian restaurant located near the Town Center, said his business was affected immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he had big parties scheduled for that night, which were cancelled. He added that Sept. 12 was a bad day and night as well. However, he said business picked up on the 13th and since then things have been better.
"There's no question there's been some sort of impact," Antuzzi said. "But there's 500 different reasons why business is down at a restaurant, and I know them all."
Antuzzi said it's hard to determine the factors that lead to decreased business for a restaurant. He said he's fortunate compared to other restaurants, in that his business is up compared to last year. However, he added that the amount he's up is so minimal, it's almost negligible.
"I'm in a good spot," Antuzzi said. However, he said downtown construction will continue to negatively affect restaurants in the Town Center. He said the "jewel" of downtown parking, the Macy's parking lot, is going under construction on Oct. 25 and that it "has to have an effect" on downtown business.
Antuzzi remains optimistic for the future.
"People still have to eat," he said. "I'm fortunate since I have a smaller restaurant. So when business is slow here, instead of an hour wait, it's half an hour. It's the big restaurants that're getting hurt."
Sunnyvale businesses that have been directly hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks are other hospitality businesses, such as local hotels. Blackman said the Chamber conducted a survey of the 26 hotels that are members. Approximately 60 percent of the hotels responded to the survey, which Blackman said is in itself notable, since usually the number of respondents is usually substantially smaller.
Blackman said hotels reported that they are currently at 40 to 75 percent occupancy. Last year at this time, the occupancy rate was approximately 95 percent, so there's been 30 to 50 percent drop for these hotels. All the hotels surveyed said they experienced a further drop after Sept. 11, between 9 and 70 percent.
Blackman said almost all report at least one cancellation of a major event after Sept. 11 and that they've had a 5 to 20 percent cancellation rate since the terrorist attacks.
Blackman said 30 percent of the respondents said they've had layoffs, with a total of 35 people losing their jobs. Three hotels said they have had to cut back the hours of some of their employees. Furthermore, eight to 15 said they were planning more layoffs in the future. She said some hotels reported going as far as closing off parts of their building until business improves.
According to Steve Sommers, general manager for the Ramada Inn, his hotel has seen a downturn in business of about 30 percent, and Sept. 11 only accelerated things. He said numerous conventions in Silicon Valley have been canceled, which has significantly decreased their number of occupants.
Sommers said there haven't been any layoffs yet at the Ramada, and he hopes there won't be. "It's hard to say," he conceded. "We'll know after the first of the year."
He said there was already a hiring freeze prior to Sept. 11, and now they're doing more restructuring.
Sommers said before Sept. 11, he expected the downturn to last from six months to one year. Now he said it looks more like it will last 18 months to two years.
Warren Wilkie, general manager of the Four Points by Sheraton, said the hotel has experienced similar problems. Like all the others, he said there was a downturn before Sept. 11, but the events made things worse.
He estimated that business has dropped off between 25 and 30 percent since Sept. 11, and that business was down 20 percent before then.
As for cutting costs, Wilkie said the hotel has been bringing in fewer people for maintenance and cleaning. He said they've not executed any layoffs, but that it's "certainly a possibility. But hopefully we won't have to do it."
Wilkie said the sharp decrease in high-tech business is certainly the source of the hotel's woes, but that they're trying to weather the storm and hope drastic actions won't be necessary.
"Sept. 11 brought it on real quick," Sommers said. "As a whole, some businesses are going to survive, and others won't."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
