Fourth of July holiday a blast

Sign of the season STAFF PHOTO BY MURRAY JUDSON A man rides a bicyle down Horace Caldwell Pier amid flags flying in honor of the Independence Day holiday. Almost without exception merchants were calling the Fourth of July weekend a record-breaker, and without major incidents, according to the police and emergency medical services. ’Twas the anniversary of America’s independence, and all through the island, not a bed was left empty, not even a couch.

The shelves were all stocked with great care, in hopes that tourists soon would be there. The shopkeepers were nestled all snug with their wares, while visions of dollar signs danced in their heads.

With police in their squad cars, and the ferries all ready, they had settled in for a long holiday weekend, when in from the north there came such a crowd, they looked on in awe when nothing went wrong.

The Independence Day holiday weekend was like Christmas in July.

It’s a parade! STAFF PHOTO BY MURRAY JUDSON On Saturday, July 4, Island Moorings residents celebrated the Fourth of July with a parade along Bayside Drive. The celebration continued at the home of Laurens and Julia Fish where lemonade and popsicles were served. There were few, if any, rooms left to rent, restaurants turned tables at a fast clip, goods were flying off the shelves of the grocery and convenience stores, folks filled fishing and sight-seeing boats and yet police, emergency medical personnel and firefighters had a comparatively quiet weekend.

With more properties in their portfolio and a slight increase in prices, the 2009 Fourth of July out-ran last year’s holiday weekend when they were also sold out, said Melissa Sergeant, owner with her husband Julian, of Beachcomber Rentals.

The business concern handles rentals of vacation homes and condominiums.

Sergeant said she had new and return customers primarily from San Antonio, but also from Austin and Houston.

“I think the economy is helping Port Aransas. People are coming here instead of going to Hawaii and Florida,” Sergeant said.

“More people seem to appreciate that we’re here than before; everybody was happy to be here. They were in upbeat spirits; there were no complaints,” she added.

“And the fireworks were incredible; that 45-minute show as awesome,” she said.

The holiday weekend turned out to be a four-day weekend for many of the properties managed by CCMS.

Managing director Jim Triplett said they had reservations for Thursday through Saturday as well as for Friday through Sunday, “so the weekend spanned from Thursday to Monday,” Triplett said.

“We hadn’t seen that before,” but the trend was consistent through the properties, he said.

Occupancy was up 10 to 15 percent over last year, and with pricing the same as last year, “We didn’t seen any semblance of a back-slide due to the economy,” Triplett added.

Another surprise was the number of guests that booked weekends for later in the summer before they left. “A significant number made reservations,” Triplett said.

He said he drove around town during

’the holiday weekend “morning, noon and night, and most every accommodation had full parking lots, and that’s a very good sign,” he said.

’ Bill Bauder at Coral Cay Condominium said the holiday weekend was “very comparable to a year ago.”

His records indicate that July and August are tracking identically to last year, “which, if it holds, it will be good.”

“It was really remarkable,” said Mike Hall, co-owner and store director of the Family Center IGA.

Last year, the Fourth of July and the Deep Sea Roundup coincided, and this year’s numbers exceeded last year, Hall said.

“It’s real telling to be able to beat last year’s numbers with the absence of the Deep Sea Roundup. That’s crucial,” he said.

Hall described the crowd as “good, old-fashioned summer tourists, middle class families with disposable incomes.” He said they were spending money, but they were looking at the ads and looking for bargains.

“Purchases per transaction were up. That means they were buying slightly cheaper units. It was just enough to tell the economy is a little tighter. But they bought more, spent more and there were more of them,” Hall said.

The price of gasoline was quite a bit higher last year, Hall noted, “which gave them a little more disposable income.”

For what may have been the first time, the Family Center ran out of ice, but only briefly.

When Wayne Serpa, owner of Coastal Bend Ice arrived with ice, he was handing it directly to customers – he didn’t even have a chance to get it to the freezers.

“It was something else. We sold more ice on Friday than we ever have in my 10 years in business,” Serpa said.

“There had to have been more people in town than we’ve ever had. We broke records at the car wash on Avenue G, too,” he said.

Serpa said Coastal Bend Ice was up only slightly over the same four-day period last year, July 2-5, but that for July 3, “we were way over last year.”

If the Fourth of July weekend “is any indication of what’s going to happen all summer, we’re in for a good one,” Serpa said.

“They killed us. It was a wonderful weekend,” said Kim Hansen, area manager of Stripes convenience stores.

Several stores, if not all of them in Port Aransas reported record sales, Hansen said.

“It was five times better than Spring Break. I’ve been area manager for nine years, and Saturday (July 4) was the best sales day we’ve had in nine years,” she said.

Parking lots at all the stores were full, Hansen said, adding, “It was a recordbreaking weekend for us.”

Hansen worked as a clerk in the store at Avenue G and Station Street on Saturday and Sunday.

“I’ve never seen such a polite crowd,” she said.

After stocking up, the crowd proceeded to take in some of the outdoor activities available in Port Aransas.

Ron Laird, owner of Wet Head Kayak Adventures said the weekend was pretty busy, “busier than last year.”

“Busier, busier, busier,” was the response to a question about a comparison of Fourth of July 2008 to 2009 put to Sue Bridges, owner of Kohootz, which offers nature and dolphin sight-seeing trips.

“It was so heavy, it was mass confusion. It was a bottleneck; people couldn’t find us. We had a lot of people who didn’t show up because they couldn’t get to us,” Bridges said.

The business is located near the intersection of Cotter Avenue, Cut-off Road, Port Street and the entrance to the ferry landing.

“It seemed heavier than last year. ... It was definitely a storm of people,” Bridges said.

Billy Gaskins, owner of the Island Queen and The Mustang, which offer fishing and nature trips, said, “We had a great weekend.”

“We’re very strong. Tourism still seems to be going strong. People are traveling,” Gaskins said.

With one of the best summers for fishing, Gaskins said, “We’re lucky here.

Valerie Bradley, manager at the Dairy Queen, probably would not argue with that.

She said the weekend was “major, major, up above what we’ve done.”

“We hit phenomenal numbers, much larger than last year,” she said.

Bradley has been on the job three years. Her first Fourth of July here she said the fast food restaurant was “slammed.” The next year it rained, and that put a damper on business.

This year was “phenomenal,” she said.

At Port A Pizzeria the crowd kept the pizza ovens hot.

General manager Ken Meyer said the holiday was “beautiful. It was a nice crowd” with a good group of diverse, young and old people.”

An all-day buffet, rather than shutting it down after the lunch crowd, helped keep the numbers “right in the ballpark, with maybe even a slight increase,” Meyer said.

Stephanie Kenigsberg, who with her husband, Jay, owns Seafood and Spaghetti Works, said, “It was good; it’s never great when the Fourth falls on a Saturday, but it was good other than that.”

A veteran of about 25 years in the bar and restaurant business in Port Aransas, Back Porch Bar owner Susan Powell said she has never seen that many people on the streets, along the waterfront, or the Family Center as busy as it was over the weekend.

It was a record-breaking Fourth of July weekend, Powell said.

Saturday, July 4, was the best Fourth of July Saturday since the waterfront bar opened in spring of 2001, she added.

The numbers seemed to support Powell’s observations.

Felix Treviño, assistant ferry operations manager, said the number of vehicles, pedestrians coming across the ferry and the total round trips exceeded last year when the Fourth of July coincided with the Deep Sea Roundup, the oldest and largest saltwater fishing tournament on the Texas coast.

From Thursday through Sunday, the ferries brought more than 2,500 more vehicles across the ship channel than the same period last year. That amounted to 94 more round trips than were made a year ago. Nearly 70 more pedestrians crossed the ship channel via the ferry this year than last.

Ferry Statistics
July 2-5
Vehicles (Round Trips)
2009: 36,962
2008: 34,374
Difference +2,588
Pedestrians
2009: 1,365 pedestrians
2008: 1,296
Difference: +69
Round Trips
2009: 1,479 round trips
2008: 1,385
Difference: +94

While Treviño said traffic backed upThursday about midday when more boats were put into service, there was no truth to the rumor that the line of vehicles waiting to board the ferryboats for the ride to Port Aransas extended to the west side of the Dale Miller Bridge in Aransas Pass.

Traffic backed up at midnight Thursday when the wait was as long as an hour-and-a-half until about 1:30 a.m. when a third boat (out of the fleet of six) was put in service.

Waiting time to board ferries Friday, Saturday and Sunday ranged from an hour and 15 minutes to an hour-and-a half.

Treviño said the wait to leave Port Aransas after the fireworks display Saturday night was about 45 minutes.

For all the people in town, police reported no major incidents.

Lt. James Stokes, a 12-year veteran of the Port Aransas Police Department, said, “We had a ton of people here, but they were pretty well behaved. We were steady, but most of the stuff was piddly.”

The number of calls for fireworks being ignited (which is illegal in the city limits) was down, with 24 calls made, Stokes said.

The number of arrests, led by public intoxication, were also down, and only one or two arrests for driving while intoxicated were made.

Disturbance calls were “about average” at 24, but most were verbal arguments. Stokes said, while it was not official, he did not recall responding to any active fight calls.

The crowd, in terms of size, he said, was “average or maybe bigger than normal.”

EMS director Yancy Gillespie said the holiday weekend wasn’t quite as busy as last year.

“But Monday it went crazy,” mostly with sick calls, he said.

Unusual for the Fourth of July was the lack of fire calls. The only one was Monday morning when the power went out briefly and grass caught fire at the base of a power pole at Island Moorings.

Gillespie, who is an island native, said, “The crowd was huge; the beach was packed from one end to the other, no doubt about it.”

He said the crowd was bigger than Spring Break.

Gillesie credited the city for keeping the beach road drivable, “which was a concern because of all the loose sand and no rain.”

As the holiday wound down Sunday, tourists packed their trunks, gave a honk and a wave, and off they all drove to their homes far away.

Some were heard to exclaim as they drove out of sight, “Happy birthday, America, and to all in Port A, we’ll be back in a fortnight.”