GALVESTON — For Landry’s Restaurants, it wasn’t much of a party.
The company, which operates multiple island restaurants and hotels, lost about $350,000 in sales April 16-18 during Beach Party, which brings tens of thousands of young revelers to the island each year.
Typical sales for Landry’s island operations during a typical Friday though Sunday weekend are in the “high $600,000 range,” according to the company. Sales during Beach Party weekend were about $320,000, “despite the warm, sunny weather,” Landry’s lamented.
The problem, said Tilman Fertitta, Landry’s president and CEO, is that Beach Party no longer lives up to its reputation for causing severe traffic congestion, yet some tourists still fear traveling here during the yearly event. As a result, a large part of the clientele that typically patronizes Landry’s tourist spots stayed away.
“We need to get a message out that this weekend is for everybody and that the island is open for business and that traffic doesn’t appear to be the problem it was in the past,” said Steve Greenberg, director of governmental affairs for Landry’s. “There’s no reason why it couldn’t be successful for everybody.”
What it has come down to, is letting potential tourists know that all ethnic groups are welcome on the island during Beach Party, say local business owners.
Beach Party, formerly known as Kappa weekend, has been for years a particularly sensitive issue. What started in the 1980s as a small gathering of African Americans sponsored by the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, ballooned to an event that in its heyday brought about 250,000 partygoers to an overwhelmed island. The fraternity stopped organizing the event in 1998; but Beach Party crowds continued to arrive each following year.
Aside from traffic jams — participants are known for cruising the boulevards and showing off tricked out cars — some merchants said partygoers skipped out on restaurant bills, while some had sex or urinated in residential neighborhoods.
Some island businesses, saying their employees and patrons couldn’t get to them because of traffic during Beach Party, slammed shut their doors during the event. In response to Beach Party, the city barricades certain streets and police increase their presence.
In turn, some members of the African-American community said local reaction to the event was racially motivated. Fear of traffic, they said, was a polite way of saying fear of large crowds of young African Americans.
No one complained as loudly, said Beach Party supporters, about Mardi Gras, an event known for heavy drinking and women who bare their breasts for beads.
But as the Beach Party crowds wane — only 75,000 attended last weekend’s event — attitudes are shifting. And the city and businesses may be reconsidering its approach to the event.
This year, local business members of Strand Galveston made a pact to keep their downtown businesses open, even promoting their stores with sidewalk sales.
City Manager Steve LeBlanc, at the request of Mary Jo Naschke of Strand Galveston, agreed to bag parking meters and allow patrons to park free for the weekend.
“We found this weekend to be the best weekend that we’ve had during Beach Party,” said Kyle Albright, who owns two Strand stores.
When the city got involved in promoting Beach Party a few years ago, Albright sent officials a $10,000 invoice for lost business that weekend. He never got reimbursed from the city and never really expected to.
But Albright credits the city with working with downtown businesses during the last event. Still, street barricades, of which there are many during Beach Party weekend, send the wrong message, Albright said.
As the Beach Party crowds wane, the city has used fewer people to control crowds and traffic. A few years ago, the city spent $420,000 staffing the event. This year, it spent between $250,000 to $300,000.
The city has cautiously reduced event expenditures in its budget as Beach Party crowds thin, LeBlanc said. And the city wants to get the word out to potential visitors that Beach Party has become less of an event and less of a traffic headache.
The city puts up barricades on some island streets to ensure emergency service vehicles and police can get where they need to go, LeBlanc said.
In the 1990s, emergency service vehicles were trapped in traffic during the event.
“If I can’t get a police officer or a fireman or EMS person to every place in town, well then I’m not doing my job,” LeBlanc said. “We have to plan for the worst-case scenario and it’s difficult to put out a whole bunch of barricades at the last minute.”
Albright said his customers had no trouble traveling to island, either by the Galveston Causeway or ferry. “Most of the people had absolutely no idea what was going on at the Seawall,” Albright said. “Except they wondered why all the barricades were up.”
Landry’s would like the city to get the message out to potential tourists that the island wants all tourists during Beach Party weekend.
“Mr. Fertitta feels that we need to be proactive and positive about the weekend and that this weekend is for all visitors and not any special group,” Greenberg said. “We welcome anybody.”
