Many Southern Californians flocked to the region's malls and entertainment hubs over the weekend, seemingly seeking solace from the continuous coverage of the war in Iraq by going about their business as usual.
At the Restoration Hardware store in Old Pasadena, manager Augie Galvez said the number of shoppers has been much higher than he expected. "It's been very odd.... It's been kind of like there's no war going on," he said.
As Galvez was talking, Mike Fesperman, a detective for the Los Angeles Police Department, and his wife, Deb, a homemaker and respite-care worker, were buying a wall-mounted bottle opener -- one of a string of purchases they made in Old Pasadena on Saturday. The Fespermans say their routine definitely has been thrown off by the war -- Mike's a sergeant major in the Marine Corps reserves waiting to hear whether he'll be sent to the Persian Gulf, where half a dozen relatives or close friends already have been deployed.
So why go shopping? Getting away from the television was one motive, Deb Fesperman said, but so was spending money and supporting the U.S. economy.
"That's our job here," she said. So is going to rallies to support the troops and "not protesting the war," she added, saying that the anti-war demonstrations are wasting police resources.
But next door at Atomic Garage, a youth-oriented clothing and sporting goods store, assistant manager Masumi Suzuki said business has been "super slow" since the war started. "We're actually having to cut people," she said.
Economists have worried that the onset of war would debilitate the already weakened retail sector. Early indications are that fewer consumers nationwide are hitting the stores, although the decline hasn't been as steep as predicted.
A survey taken over the weekend of 800 Americans found that 18% to 23% fewer people went shopping than would have if there was no war, according to C. Britt Beemer, chairman of Charleston, S.C.-based market research firm America's Research Group. During the Gulf War in 1991, Beemer said, 12% of consumers slowed their shopping.
Although there is some unease about the economy, the main factor in the decline seems to be consumers' "concern about what they want to do outside of the home or away from their family," he said. That's based on anxiety about terrorist reprisals, which has led some consumers to avoid malls, concert halls and other public gathering places, Beemer said.
