THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506290218
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
A 24-block stretch of the Boardwalk should twinkle like a Christmas tree from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day under a beefed up ``Holidays at the Beach'' program approved by the City Council.
On Tuesday the council voted to dip into the Tourism Growth Investment Fund for $750,000 to pay for the massive Oceanfront lighting display, tentatively scheduled from Nov. 26 through Jan. 2.
The purpose, said Henry Richardson, president of the city's Hotel and Motel Association, is to stretch the tourism season through a traditionally dormant time of year for most resort businesses.
Potential customers would be offered special hotel and motel packages and other inducements to come to the resort during the winter.
The sum approved by council on an 8-2 vote would pay for lighting displays on the Boardwalk and at primary resort entrances.
It would also cover the cost of having Cellar Door Entertainment run the program, pay for security guards, ticket takers, storage costs and electrical hookups.
City innkeepers, who initiated the program, hope to attract up to 50,000 cars to the Boardwalk display at a fee of $6 per car.
With that kind of traffic at the Oceanfront in mid-winter, Richardson and other program backers expect restaurants, stores and hotels that normally close up until spring would remain open for business.
Richardson cited the commercial success of similar lighting programs at Ocean City, Md., and Gatlinburg, Tenn., where business volume reportedly increased by 30 to 77 percent over the past few years.
The animated lighting displays would be similar to winter season light shows offered in Norfolk and Newport News for the past several years.
Light paraphernalia would be purchased for around $550,000 from Carpenter Designs, a Hickory, N.C., company that provided Ocean City and Myrtle Beach, S.C., with holiday lighting displays.
Council members Nancy K. Parker and Robert K. Dean voted against the TGIF expenditure, arguing that it was not part of the city's normal budget making process.
The idea originated in a hotel and motel association community relations subcommittee and was ramrodded by association members Kathy Pender and Sandy Jackson and Mary Pat Fortier, the association's executive director.
The three visited Ocean City and tracked down facts and figures from localities that had adopted holiday lighting programs.
Earlier this month the Resort Area Advisory Commission approved the concept of using seed money to start up the lighting program and recommended that the sum be taken from TGIF, a finance pool fed by special taxes on resort inns, restaurants and amusements.
Funds already have been earmarked for the completion of a $35-million expansion of the Virginia Marine Science Museum, the completion of the $40-million resort streetscape project and a portion of a $100-million hurricane protection plan for the resort and North End oceanfront.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL by CNB