Page 8 THE BATTALION
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1980
TEXAS A&M
VS. SMU
SPEND THE WEEKEND IN
DALLAS AND SEE THE
AGGIES TAKE ON THE
SMU MUSTANGS IN
TEXAS STADIUM.
^SATURDAY
‘NOVEMBER 1
*1:30 P.M.
‘TEXAS STADIUM
FOR TICKET INFO.
CALL
A&M TICKET OFFICE
(713) 845-2311
OR
SMU TICKET OFFICE
(214) 692-2901
GIG ’EM AGGIES!
Summer slump
Decrease in enrollment can mean trouble for area merchants
By JANA L. SIMS
Battalion Reporter
Citizens of Brazos County, stu
dents of Texas A&M University —
suppose that tomorrow you awoke to
find one-fifth of the businesses in the
county had disappeared?
The hordes of fast-food restaurants
that fill your impatient empty sto
machs had shrunk into a Burger
Doodle on the other side of town.
The grocery stores on most blocks
had vanished, leaving a few scattered
here and there. Your feet itched all
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812 P.M. $1.00
weekend because your favorite
dance hall had packed up and left no
forwarding address.
Perhaps you might feel like some
of the local merchants do when sum
mer arrives — and one-third of the
Texas A&M enrollment leaves.
Averaging the enrollment for the
fall and spring semesters of each
school year and then comparing
them to the average enrollment of
the two summer sessions for the past
10 years, enrollment drops an aver
age of 38.7 percent when the sum
mer rolls around. (Or, if you prefer,
fall enrollment swells an average of
276.6 percent when September
knocks on summer’s door.) Quite a
change in population.
Or look at the 1970 Census and
U.S. Department of Transportation
Urban Transportation Study figures,
which includes students at Texas
A&M. The estimated population for
the Brazos Valley in 1980 is 106,500.
Enrollment this fall at the University
was a record 33,499. The average
enrollment of both summer sessions
this past summer was 11,350. The
difference in the two student figures
is 22,149, or 20.8 percent of the esti
mated population for our area.
When one-fifth of the population
of Brazos County “disappears” every
nine months, what does it do to the
merchants?
“Summer? — That’s the time
when you run out to the street and
pull people in,” James Busse, mana
ger of University Flowers, said with
a smile. He said summer is “bad.
news” when it comes to business.
Busse estimates that students
make up 75 percent of his shop’s
business and with the onset of sum
mer, one-half of University Flowers’
business drops off.
Busse said that University Flow
ers, which has been open about
three years, keeps shorter hours in
the summer to compensate for the
lack of business, but the shop tries to
keep the same number of em
ployees.
“If we can help them through the
hard times (summer),” Busse said,
“they’ll help us through the hard
times (fall)."
But the “hard times” of summer
aren’t enough to discourage Univer
sity Flowers from staying open. Bus
se said he thought the shop broke
even this past summer and said those
merce said that University students’
impact on business has been great
historically, but recently the impact
has been lessened. He said the local
economy has been able to diversify
because of industrial development.
He cited the production of new
plants such as those built by Texas
Instruments and Babcock and
Wilcox.
Nevertheless, an in-house study
By JI
Batt«
ployees in the production sides -x The U.S. C
business must work fewer litfpne looking f
their workdays end when thedfifiryan-College
ing is done.
“The big problem is psycho)
al,” Gessner said. Business di
the summer, he said, and the>;
approaches and “the roof caves
i0 problem.
Preliminary
dicate a 7.8
ir housing it
on. Oftherec
B. J. ’s Package Store, a liquors
: units (houses a
An in-house study released by the University
showed that in 1979students contributed
over $65million to the local economy.
owned by none other than B.J h
been in business three yean,
B.J. said summer to him means
trying to “survive. ” He sail 11
ness drops by 30 to 40 percent® ?f r ’ P ro ^ essor
summer like “everybody’s inh’n ™ n ‘ n § at Te
gate.
Phil Callahan, who has oir,
involved with the shop just accept
that summer is a problem and try to
make the best of it.
Looking at local trade as a whole,
the Sales Tax Analyses which are re
ported quarterly by the state com
ptroller’s office show that in 1979 the
gross sales increased an average of
12.2 percent each quarter in Brazos
County. But broken down into cate
gories based on the type of sales, the
figures reveal a different pattern in
some cases.
Gross sales for general merchan
dise stores increased $5.8 million,
but between the second and third
quarters — the two quarters that
contain the summer months — gross
sales increased only $355,000.
Gross sales for food stores in
creased $6.2 million from January to
December 1979, but sales decreased
by $137,000 in the second quarter,
and decreased again by $647,000 in
the third quarter.
Automotive dealers and gas sta
tions reported gross sales of $17.3
million for the first quarter of 1979,
$21.1 million for the second quarter,
decreasing to $20.3 million for the
third quarter and rising again to
$23.3 million for the fourth quarter.
A spokesman for the Bryan-
College Station Chamber of Corn-
released by the University showed
that in 1979 students contributed
over $65 million to the local eco-
Swensen’s Ice Cream Factor) e cent census
ble, 2,245 an
Vacancies? 1
on? A study is
nder the sup
ompanng cen
> ounts.
Gardner’s h
that since
nomy.
The Chamber spokesman said the
summer impact is not as great as it
has been for two reasons: 1) A lot of
students have jobs here during the
fall and spring semesters and leave in
the summer, and 2) There has been
an increase in graduate students —
some who have spouses that hold
jobs and take roots here in the
summer.
Bernie Gessner, owner of the 8-
year-old Aggie Cleaners in North-
gate, said in the Bryan-College Sta
tion area, “the peaks and valleys are
mountainous.”
He said 75 percent of his business
is college related — Texas A&M fa
culty or staff — if not actually stu
dents. Add this to the fact that the
cleaning business is typically slower
in the summer, and Gessner said his
business drops two-thirds in the
summer.
Gessner said he is forced to look
for institutional business in the sum
mer, which includes “calling chur
ches to see if they need their choir
robes cleaned.”
Aggie Cleaners stays open the
same hours in the summer, but em-
D.D. Willia
IneerforTexa
ighways and
Census (offi
iom as a dwe
d has an ou
Housing p
allege Stati
acancy rate is
Ask any ap;
two years with his wife Jane,
reason they didn’t want to lot® |J uc t ec J j n Aj:
Northgate is because of that® |exas A&M gr
dependence on students. not coun t e d
“We wanted to appeal to tit P r °bably list
tire community,” he said, ^Bences,
effect on his business is notasji
He said that late night
(from 9 p.m. on) is not as g(
summer because mostofSwei
late business is Texas A&M still
Also, Callahan said, sales are
level in summer because
no football weekends with evei
coming in town.
Managers or owners of
Carroll’s Baskets and Wide,
Curiosity Shop and the Texas
Fame said their businessei
affected just slightly by s®
Kaye Allen, the new owner
Beer Garden, said business
about 60 percent in the sumJ
Art Hickle, owner of AR Pk . » »
phy, estimates that40percentol ir /|/3I
customers are Texas A&M stiKkfU A/t w
In the summer, he said, busiiMfT
creases by about 20 percent, bill
is a combination of the ladofsi
dents and the fact that sum
months are normally slow(«|
photography business.
Private eatery is Peking’s first
. Bob Hope v
idential cam
Light as orig
I Hope’s NB 1
iPresident,” ha
bl Saturday, N
bal debates ca
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United Press International
PEKING — Good food and pri
vate business are quietly being re
vived down a narrow, dusty alleyway
in the heart of communist China.
A mother, anxious about the fu
ture of her two unemployed sons,
made culinary history this month
when she opened her own res
taurant. It is the first privately run
restaurant in Peking in nearly two
decades.
Except for a brief period in the
early 1960s when small private food
stalls made an appearance, all res
taurants in the capital had been oper-
Hope filmec
i at Eastern
.arrived in Coll
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B'NAI B'fllTH HILlgl, FOUNDATION
October 29 7:30 p.m
Come Dance
at Hillel
Country Western & Folk Dance
with
Ilene Gould leading
Refreshments available.
Hillel Jewish
Student Center
800 Jersey C.S.
ated by the government since the
communist regime was established
in 1949.
Recent economic reforms have
lifted some of the restraints on “indi
vidual economy” — private busi
ness.
It was a humble beginning for Liu
Guixin, 47, the jovial, plump mother
of five and proprietor of a three-table
establishment that occupies what
once was the family’s living room.
Mrs. Liu said it took 1,100 yuan
($660) to set up the shop. Her hus
band borrowed from his employer,
she had some savings and the bank
loaned her half the necessary capital
expenditure.
Then it took Mrs. Liu six months
of wrangling with government red
tape before she finally opened the
eatery at No. 47 Quihua (Jade Flow
er) Hutong, one of the countless re
sidential compounds of old, grey-
brick huts where real life goes on
behind the splendor of the archways
and palaces.
She said she decided to open her
own restaurant because her two
youngest sons had waited for two
years for the government to ait „ ,,
them jobs. Millions of young J Several bun
are without employment in « me ) V1 1 ,
because there are too nianypf^ Ils .’ j lowe
and too few jobs for people wii ’ ree e com
specialist skills. Hope perfc
“I thought it could help the! Sollie White C
eminent and help my two s« light, and toh
Mrs. Liu said. She now is loro Jfeturn to Agg
their employer, paying en'^ive filming it
monthly wage amounting to SZ f v
The only thing that distingu ;al J k at eI{
her house from those of her 4 tarsformer p
bors is a handwritten sign abort oh Carso
front„door It says Yuerbilrg T Randall
guon — the restaurant that plfi
its customers.
She said she cooks more till
different courses, including sue!
otic items as bear paws andswal
nest. Her specialty is duck, n®
eight different ways.
Soup, a main dish and ricecoS
cents at her place, and usuallyn;
than 60 cents at a bigger, state-
establishment.
“Workers with jobs nearby®
have great difficulties findings?
for lunch, ” she said. “Nowtheye
here.”
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