Clearlake Residents Worry That High Gas Prices Will Keep Needed Tourists Away

By Jim Wasserman, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Jul. 4–CLEARLAKE — Summer feels different here this year.

Those who live here year-round have a strong sense that out-of-towners who are the core of Clearlake and Lake County’s tourism trade are thinking hard about visiting the 100 miles of shoreline circling the state’s largest natural lake. There’s a worry that high gasoline prices and a slumping economy might be bearing down.

“One of the things we’ve noticed — and I have a house on the water — is the absence of boats,” said Al Bernal of Clearlake, a shoreside town of 14,000 about 110 miles from Sacramento.

On the big lake that defines the region — a geological jewel known as Clear Lake, thought to be among the oldest lakes in North America — summer always means the whine of Jet Skis and the deep roar of power boats.

But this year, on a Fourth of July weekend filled with parades and fireworks, $4.50 gasoline is calming the waters. And make that $5.50 a gallon at the marinas.

The price spikes follow a hard spring on Clear Lake, with tourist activity dampened by cold weather, wind and, in the past week or so, the smoke of nearby forest fires. Two years ago, tourists spent $160 million visiting Lake County, according to state figures. Though no firm figures are available for this year, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the restaurants and hotel rooms were a little less crowded as summer moves past the Fourth and toward Labor Day.

“It’s noticeable. We can feel it,” said Troy Bellah, manager of Clearlake Outdoors, a fishing retailer in the city of Clearlake. Bellah says business is down about 10 percent this summer.

“I can surmise that it’s directly related to the gas prices,” he said. “It costs $140 to $150 to fill the boat, and that’s not even counting the vehicle gas.”

It’s also a little slow now for his fishing guide business, as it was during winter’s pro bass tournament, an event that rates coverage on ESPN. The blame again: gas prices, said Bellah, though “hands down this is the best lake in the Western U.S. for trophy bass.”

Standing behind the store at Redbud Park boat launch, Kyle Fredette of Clearlake says he has a “friend who comes up twice a year (from the Bay Area) with his Winnebago and his boat.”

And this year?

“He’s only coming up once,” Fredette said.

It can’t be overstated how important tourism — and a vibrant summer season — is to Lake County. For all its efforts to create good jobs by enticing more spenders to stay at its newly remodeled bed and breakfasts, the county is part of an area where the median household income — $37,628 in 2006 — is $10,000 below the national average.

Unemployment — 9.3 percent in May — is much higher than the state average of 6.5 percent. During the first six months of the year, the county had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state. Many of its residents are retirees on fixed incomes. High-paying jobs are limited.

That makes the $44 million in tax money the tourism trade contributed from 2001 to 2006 central to the financial health of the county and its 64,000 full-time residents.

Still, no one believes the summer tourist season will be a disaster. Clear Lake has always been a vacation destination. Lake County real estate agent Howard Glasser calls it “a kinder, gentler place, where it feels, when you live here, like you’re on vacation all the time.”

People from all over — the Sacramento region, the Bay Area, even Europe — have signed guest books at a visitor center in nearby Lucerne, which calls itself the Switzerland of the U.S.

Besides time spent on the lake, they’re coming as well for the area’s wineries and to gamble in one of Lake County’s three Indian casinos.

Debra Sommerfield, Lake County’s chief executive for economic development, couldn’t cite specific figures about whether visitors were coming in their usual numbers this summer. She called the season to date a “mixed bag.”

“I’ve talked with some lodging resort owners who said they are doing the same as last year,” she said, “and a couple who say they are up. Then there are others who say they are down.”

Sommerfield believes that if gas prices go higher, water lovers who have planned a trip to Shasta Lake, about 150 miles away, will instead pick Lake County as a cheaper, closer alternative.

But even if boaters are cruising less and come less often, Lake County is more than a one-act Eden of water skiing and fishing.

“If you looked at our area six years ago, we had four or five wineries,” Sommerfield said. “Now we have 25.”

At one of the newest — Ceago Vinegarden near Lucerne — 15 people stood in the tasting room at 2 o’clock on a recent afternoon.

“I work in San Francisco and decided to take the day off to see my friends,” said Lynette Comstock of Benecia. “I was intrigued by this place, too.”

Ceago Vinegarden’s 163-acre operation includes a dock for travelers arriving by boat.

“We talk to a lot of folks who think that is a ‘wow’ destination,” Sommerfield said. “There are not many places in California where you can boat up and do wine tasting.”

Lake County’s Indian casinos pull people from the Highway 101 corridor and elsewhere, Sommerfield says. Robinson Rancheria Resort and Casino near the town of Upper Lake boasts a 48-room hotel.

The Konocti Vista Casino, Resort and Marina near Lakeport has an 80-room hotel, a 74-space RV park and a 90-slip marina; it’s booked up this weekend for fireworks and concerts by rock bands Boston and Styx. The Twin Pine Casino near Middletown has a hotel in the works.

At Robinson Rancheria, front desk clerk Judy Power says higher gas prices haven’t changed a thing.

“We’ve been full all week,” she said. “We haven’t seen that much of a difference. People gamble no matter what.”

But Power still wonders about the larger tourism economy this summer. Partly, it comes from talking to friends who feel strapped by higher prices.

“I know a lot of people in the Bay Area who say they’re not coming up,” she said. “They can’t fill up the boat and the truck, too.”

Henry Brown of Santa Rosa owns a second home on Clear Lake’s north shore. He’s been coming to the area since 1968. Last month, he said, he spent $400 on gas driving between his two residences.

“People who used to boat, this is their recreation,” he said, standing in the Robinson Rancheria parking lot.

Twenty-five miles to the southeast, Bud McClung wants to keep on boating. But the cost of fuel is awfully high.

It was barely noon, the fish weren’t biting, and McClung was already pulling his red boat out of Clear Lake’s calm water.

“We didn’t even fill up,” he said. “We chickened out before it got full. We hold 26 gallons. That’s quite a bit of money.”

—–

To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.