Dean Bensen looks for bargains when he visits the liquor store.
“I’m a lot more calculating,” the retired Port Angeles office manager said, standing outside the state liquor store in Port Angeles before driving away.
Carlene Ringius of Port Angeles has the same mind-set.
Because of the sour economy, she often buys cheaper, lesser brands to save money.
“I am more conscious of buying down,” she said, standing outside the same store before she prepared to go in.
“I’m worried about the economy, and are we ever going to pull out of this,” Ringius said.
“This,” she said, was the plummeting stock market, the housing slowdown, high unemployment.
Over several days, Peninsula Daily News interviewed a state Liquor Control Board spokesman, a beer distributor, state liquor store manager, the head of a drug task force and a winery owner to answer the following:
Is the economy so bad on the North Olympic Peninsula that people are cutting back on alcohol, drugs and rock and roll?
Or is it so bad that people are spending more on such pursuits?
We added psychology professor William Spring of Peninsula College to the mix to find out how economic adversity affects our spending on certain pleasures that some might call sinful.
‘Escapist-oriented spending’
“Many people cut back, but a certain percentage of the population seems to be drawn to what might be called escapist-oriented spending,” Spring said.
Across Washington, state liquor store sales to individuals, bars, taverns and restaurants — commercial establishments buy their hard liquor from state stores, too — increased 5.7 percent in 2008 from 2007, according to the state Liquor Control Board.
But sales were stagnant in Clallam and Jefferson counties, dropping $31,000 on $13.6 million in sales.
And for the first two months of 2009, sales are down in both counties, 5 percent in Clallam and 2 percent in Jefferson.
In addition, just since July, the number of establishments licensed to sell wine, liquor and beer increased to 57 ¬– a 17.5 percent increase — in Clallam and by one, to 53, in Jefferson.
Statewide, sales were up 4.8 percent for the first two months of 2009 compared to the same time period in 2008.
Are liquor-store purchases suddenly stagnating in rural areas such as Jefferson and Clallam counties?
“It’s fair to say that it seems that may be the case,” state Liquor Board spokesman Brain Smith said.
“There are pockets around the state where sales are not growing that fast, and maybe some of the urban areas are helping carry some of that” to account for the overall increase, he said.
But the Liquor Control Board is happy with the 5 percent growth July through January statewide, and Smith isn’t worried about February’s total.
“We’re right on target with our expected growth statewide,” Smith said.
In rural areas, he said, you might reasonably speculate that “yeah, probably people are hanging onto their money a little bit.”
Bars in Jefferson and Clallam counties are supplied by Port Angeles-based Olympic Distributing Co.
Bars in Clallam and Jefferson counties are supplied with specialty beers by Port Angeles-based Olympic Distributing Co.
Owner Joe Gladfelter has seen little movement up or down among his customers.
But the bar owners he sells to are feeling the limbo.
“I think stagnant is a really good term,” Gladfelter said. “It’s just the way it is. Our sales are flat, just kind of flat.”
Gladfelter said some bars are “up a little,” but not significantly.
At the Port Angeles liquor store, where sales were down 2 percent this January and February compared to 2008, manager Shelly Ballas is thankful she has a steady client base, though it comes with a down side.
“I sell addiction, and people are not going to give it up,” she said.
Work insecurity
Over the last six months, she said she’s had lots of conversations with those affected by the economy:
Some were laid off the day they were buying liquor to lubricate the pain.
Others said they were happy to have worked just three days that week.
Still others punctuated their purchases with the sentiment that they were just happy to have a job.
“You offer people a kind of ‘How are you doing?’ and you are pretty much opening a can of worms,” she said. “We are just kind of bartenders, in a sense.”
In Clallam Bay, liquor store manager Tammy Hull said her sales are down about $400 compared to a year ago.
Hull said many in Clallam Bay are already financially hemmed in because they live on government assistance or Social Security, which limits their buying power.
And she gets few customers from among the Clallam Bay Corrections Center employees, who might have more disposable income.
Hull is waiting for fishing season to boost purchases.
Her sales in August 2008 were more than double what they were in January 2008.
But more often than not, she’s left scratching her head to figure out why people buy what they buy.
“One week it’s really good and one week it’s really bad,” she said. “I can’t figure it out.”
Cutting back
Forks liquor store manager Greg Munson said people drink about the same amount, good economic times or bad, but many drink cheaper brands.
Sales at his store increased 11 percent this January and February compared to 2008, by far the greatest increase of any of the North Olympic Peninsula’s eight stores.
Munson speculated some of the increase might be coming from older fans of the hugely popular Twilight series of books.
The teen romance, set in Forks, is drawing daily bus loads of sightseers, but many are too young to drink, and it’s too early to say if the surge will continue.
“It will be interesting to see in March what it does,” Munson said of sales.
The economy may account for a change in spending patterns at 7 Cedars casino in Blyn, said Ron Allen, tribal chairman for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, which owns the casino.
“Overall, the numbers are staying pretty much the same,” he said.
“What we are finding is that some people aren’t staying that long. You have to measure that against the backdrop of, the number of people showing up has increased.”
Illegal drug use
It’s hard to say whether illegal drug use has increased or decreased during the downturn, said Ron Cameron of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department.
The drug trade was “real slack” in December, he said.
But that changed in January, he said.
“We’re starting to see an uptick in meth again,” Cameron said.
Recently a deputy was called to a Clallam County hotel where a housekeeper found “what amounted to a good hundred dollars worth of meth crystals just in the carpet,” Cameron said. “That’s an incredible amount to leave behind.”
About a month ago, Cameron added, a Kitsap County warrant served on a Miller Road residence in the Sequim area yielded a pound of uncut methamphetamine, more than 100 narcotic pills including Oxycodone and morphine, marijuana, five weapons and a bulletproof vest.
Special deals
Those selling legal forms of escape are enticing people with special deals.
At Olympic Cellars winery east of Port Angeles, revenue dropped 22 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, and production was cut by 50 percent after the winery’s distributor was sold, majority owner Kathy Charlton said.
As with liquor, “people are being selective on what they buy,” she said.
Popular are standard bottles of Working Girl wines for $9.99, what Charlton calls “a sweet spot” in her revenue stream.
They also are concentrating more on enjoying themselves at chocolate-and-red-wine events.
“My philosophy is, I’m going to market and sell my way out of this recession,” Charlton said.
Looking for restaurant bargains is a “rational” way for people to cope with a downturn, suggested Spring, the Peninsula College psychology professor.
But others “are inclined toward avoidance-based coping,” he added.
“Some people avoid making behavioral changes, and that would fit in with gambling and drinking and other hedonistic pursuits to take the attention off unpleasant realities. If the economy is contracting as fast as it is, economizing to some extent so you have a reserve is a rational response.”
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
