Bad for business

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce is discovering that sponsoring mountain trolls to bang on drums and hoot in megaphones scares the straits:

Two weeks after the Berkeley City Council refused to apologize to the Marine Corps for calling them “uninvited and unwelcome intruders,” Berkeley businesses said they are feeling the backlash from people who don’t want to spend their money in the city.

“We’re hearing of folks canceling reservations and canceling hotel rooms, and we know there is a direct correlation. How big, I don’t know. We’re in a tough economic period anyway,” said Ted Garrett, chief executive officer of the chamber.

Garrett said the chamber has received an estimated 300 e-mails, letters and faxes from people upset about the council’s action and its refusal to apologize.

“Folks are upset,” he said. “Unfortunately, they are blaming the businesses.”

It’s a bad break for the small business folks, and it’s coming frankly at a bad time – with the threat of a recession looming, it’d be nice to be able to put a bit away for the lean times. If consumer spending really takes a nose-dive and the time comes to cut costs, the first people to feel the pinch are at-will employees working for hourly wages in small companies. Folks like that tend to have few resources of their own to fall back upon.

City Councilmember Dona Spring is unsympathetic to her constituents:

(She) doesn’t view the protests as a problem. She said only the businesses on the same block as the demonstrations are being affected.

“Every anti-war group in the East Bay wants to come and protest. This is where the action is,” she said.

Might be where the action is, but considering that Ms Spring is involved in local government she’s strangely unconcerned about local payrolls and tax base, not to mention her neighbors.