The water contamination issue remains a major problem for the City of Imperial Beach specifically the businesses as they struggled to get people into their doors.
The crowd at Ye Olde Plank Inn in Imperial Beach may be smaller nowadays, but the comradery is the same.
Co-owner Marty Mattes shares what life’s been like the last few months. He says, “We’ve been going down a slow slope. We used to have all that business down here this time of year. We'd have the bar packed with people from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Chicago none of that is here right now."
Since the beach closures began, Marty says they’ve seen about a 40% loss of revenue during the day. What used to be a steady flow of customers all day, has become a handful of regulars stopping in.
He adds, " We made 3 dollars, we sold one soda all morning.”
Two of those regulars are George and Don, who come into the bar three times a week after their walk along the pier.
They have their morning coffee and shoot a couple of games of pool.
Even they’ve noticed the empty streets and parking lots.
George says, “ I think because of the pollution on the beach. A lot of people aren’t even walking.”
But, Marty says despite the stress, he’s focused on staying positive and trying to get the word out about helping the local economy.
He adds, “It’s very stressful you wake up at night. Just like Oh my Gosh, what am I going to do? But the people in IB are resilient the beach may be closed but the businesses aren’t.”
He’s hopeful progress is made on the water contamination issue by the summer because that’s typically their busiest time of the year.
