
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 30, 1990                   TAG: 9005300413
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short

BEACH SEASON GETS OFF TO SLOW START

The holiday weekend rains washed away any hopes of a bright start to the 1990 tourist season for many resort city merchants.

"I opened at 8 o'clock Sunday and it rained all morning. I didn't have a customer until noon," said Beth Tetterton, manager of Raging Rags on the city's resort strip.

"Last year, it was 90 degrees and sunny, so it makes a difference. Weather has everything to do with it," she said.

"We expected to do about five times what we ended up doing," Kevin Miller, manager of Flamingo Joe's fresh-squeezed lemonade stand, said Monday. Miller said there was no tourist traffic after nightfall.

Occupancy rates on the resort strip were running about 75 percent on Friday. At the Radisson Hotel at the Pavilion 90 percent of the rooms were filled Saturday, said Mike Gelardi, president of the Virginia Hotel Corp., which owns the hotel.

-Associated Press

by CNB