Business owners in Christiansted reacted with anger, frustration and exhaustion to the news that the Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause had been raised 25 percent by the Public Service Commission on Monday.
During that meeting, commission member Joseph San Marin expressed concern that Christiansted is turning into a “ghost town.” He said that electricity had become the biggest expense for many small businesses and that more and more were buckling under the strain and closing up shop.
“You don’t need to build a bypass,” he said. “Main Street is the bypass.”
An informal survey of business owners in Christiansted found that San Martin was not far off in his comments, though the “ghost town” comment might have been overstated.
“For rent” signs are certainly in abundance throughout the business district, but open stores still outnumber closed ones by a good margin.
Still the remaining merchants complain that the combination of high energy bills and the territory’s flagging economy are forcing them to make severe sacrifices.
“We’ve already cut back so much already; I’m working the floor,” said Molly Buckley, owner of St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures. “I guess we’ll just cut back more.”
Like most other business owners, Buckley said she had reduced the hours of her staff and was keeping a keen eye on her electricity usage, but she remains hopeful that things will rebound. Buckley said she had been in business on St. Croix for too long to be run off and would find a way to keep going.
Marion Bressi, who’s owned The Royal Poinciana for 20 years, was less optimistic.
“If I could sell this and walk away tomorrow, I would,” she said.
Bressi said there was simply too little foot traffic in town for a gift shop to flourish with such high overhead costs. She said that last Thursday she had only three customers.
“That doesn’t pay for the lights,” she said. “That doesn’t pay for salary.”
News of the LEAC increase came at a particularly bad time as merchants are struggling through the end of the slow summer tourist season. Many expressed hope that the influx of visitors from the United States and Denmark would allow them to cope with their higher electricity bills, but not everyone saw tourism as the answer.
Terri Fleming, manager of the King Christian and Company Street hotels, said she was beginning to doubt whether the tourists would continue to come. She said that as businesses continued to close in Christiansted and elsewhere around the island, St. Croix was becoming a less desirable travel destination.
“It’s extremely slow,” she said. “No one is coming to the island because there’s nothing to come to do.”
Fleming said that on Tuesday the King Christian Hotel had only three occupied rooms, and even if business picks up during the winter, the hotels would struggle to pay their electricity and water bills.
Fleming said the two hotels combined pay over $20,000 to the V.I. Water and Power Authority every month, and there was only so much they could do to reduce costs. They’ve already cut back on the food offered at their continental breakfast, she said, and some housekeepers have taken it upon themselves to turn off air conditioners left on by guests who have left for the day.
It wasn’t all bad news in Christiansted, however. On Tuesday morning, dive and excursion boats stood ready in the harbor, and work on the new John Eddie’s Low Life Bar and Refuge continued unabated.
The Twin City Coffeehouse was full of customers and Diane Butler said she didn’t fear the LEAC increase at all. She said that rising electricity costs were just a part of doing business on St. Croix and that her café had been aggressively cutting its usage for years.
“We walked into this with our eyes wide open,” she said.
Butler stressed the importance of planning ahead and constantly finding ways to cut costs. She said a number of simple measures, such as servicing her air conditioner and replacing a large, inefficient refrigerator, had allowed her to cut the business’s electricity bill by $200 since last year.
Jack Pickle, head of Our Town Christiansted (formerly the Christiansted Restaurant and Retail Association) said the key to keeping the town vibrant may be to cultivate businesses like Twin City Coffeehouse.
“You have to figure out businesses that don’t need a lot of electricity, which is hard in the tropics,” he said.
Larger businesses like restaurants and hotels will feel the impact of the LEAC increase the most, he said, due to their reliance on energy intensive refrigeration and air conditioning.
Our Town Christiansted is committed to revitalizing the business district by 2017, in time for the centennial celebration of Transfer Day, but Pickle said accomplishing that goal will be tough if WAPA cannot find a way to lower its rates or at least keep increases in line with inflation.
Until that happens, he said Christiansted business owners will just have to find ways to get by.
“We have no choice. We’re kind of in a trap,” he said. “We have to stay in business to stay alive.”
