Shop Area Near Yosemite a ‘Ghost Town’
MARIPOSA, Calif. — Joanna Chau looks around her recently expanded restaurant. There’s a new red carpet on the floor and white napkins are carefully folded on each table. She shakes her head in dismay.
The place is empty.
“Just look here. It’s 12:20, lunchtime, and it’s empty,†she said. “We usually do 10 tour buses a day just for lunch.â€
Chau and her husband have owned the China Station Restaurant for 12 years, relying mostly on Asian tourists for their living. But after floods ravaged much of Yosemite National Park recently, the steady flow of tourists through this small town southwest of the park stopped completely.
Winter months are never boom times for the local economy, which depends heavily on tourism, but with Yosemite closed at least through February, this could be one of the worst years ever for merchants.
“Winter is usually slower, but the Chinese New Year always keeps us going,†Mrs. Chau said. “I’m really worried. If it’s a couple of weeks or a month, we can handle that, but we can’t handle six months.â€
The restaurant was forced to lay off eight of its 10 employees. Now the place is run by the owners and two workers.
“A lot of local people here have supported us. They would come in and eat here, but that’s not nearly enough,†Mrs. Chau said.
The main thoroughfare in town, less than a mile long, was quiet and bare, with few cars or pedestrians on a visit earlier this month. On a usual day, several tour buses would stop for about an hour, long enough for the visitors to eat, buy a souvenir or two and head for the park.
“We’ve had a stretch of days where not one person would walk in and that’s really scary,†said Adrianne Jonson, who owns a gift shop down the street from the Chaus. “You can’t pay rent on that. You can’t buy food.â€
Jonson co-owns the novelty store with her husband and a friend, Carol Russell.
“Drop-off isn’t even a word for it,†Russell said. “It’s like a ghost town here.â€
Even if the park does open several weeks from now, there is no guarantee tourists will be heading back, she said.
“We get an awful lot of business from overseas. They make their plans way ahead of time. If they know that the park is closed now, they won’t plan a vacation out here for the summer,†Russell said.
No tourists means the county will also feel the squeeze. About half of Mariposa County’s $11.5 million in general funds this year is supposed to come from hotel taxes, said spokesman Steve Hayes. That’s not including other direct and indirect revenue to the county from tourism.
“We’re trying to be levelheaded about this whole thing,†Hayes said.
The county officials have not yet estimated potential losses from the park closure, but the effects will be significant, he said.
Part of the effect could be in unemployment. County officials couldn’t guess how many have lost their jobs, but one local temporary employment agency owner said there are a lot of people out of work.
“Typically on an open interview day, we interview from eight to 20 people,†Barbara Boyer said. She said on Jan. 9 there were 53 interviews.
“Twenty-three were displaced concession services people and 14 others were flood-related. It was very, very disheartening,†she said.
The county and some businesses are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Hayes said the county is planning special advertising efforts to let people know about special activities and regional recreation, such as river rafting, in and around Mariposa.
Jonson and Russell are thinking about taking their goods to traveling arts and crafts shows.
“We try to get pretty creative. We’re trying to do other things to keep our business going,†Russell said.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
