BEACH cafés and kiosks have had to close, send staff home and lose much-needed revenue as the Island experiences its ‘worst summer in 20 years’, owners have said.
While last summer ‘felt like Saturday every day’ for these businesses, low-pressure weather systems off Jersey’s shores are this year causing ‘devastation’ and low customer numbers.
With 38.7mm of rainfall on 1 August, there has already been more rain this month than in the whole of last August (33.3mm), which also saw a hosepipe ban.
There are fears that a poor summer season could have knock-on effects on tourism, survivability during winter seasons and fewer hours for staff, some of whom are temporary workers from outside the Island.
Mary Tunney, who runs Mad Mary’s Bouley Bay Beach Café, said it was ‘absolutely shocking’ and the ‘worst summer in my 20 years of running the café’.
‘In fact, we’ve not even had a summer,’ she deplored.
Tourists who had visited her café earlier this week spoke about their ‘devastation’ at the weather, which had forced them to alter their camping holiday.
‘Everyone worries about staff too,’ she said. ‘I’ve recently raised the wages for my staff because I want them to be happy at work.
‘It’s so miserable when we have the staff, we have all our cakes baked and only five customers come in, ordering maybe two cups of coffee each.
‘If I have food left, I’m giving it away for free to those who want it,’ she added, while encouraging Islanders to visit. ‘I rely on busy summer months to get me through the winter. I want to be open.’
Freddie Faulkner and Aaron Cowen, at Kismet Cabana in Ouaisné, said they were cancelling and postponing events which would had been due to take place on the beach during warm summer evenings.
They said: ‘We’re looking at moving summer events to September and October, which is weird.
‘The weather is certainly affecting us because we should be busy now that we’re in the summer service, but the wind and rain are causing us to lose customers in the morning and the afternoon. Last summer it felt like a Saturday every day of the week.
‘That will have a knock-on effect in winter, because summer is our biggest hit and we run off summer throughout the rest of the year. We bring in extra staff to be ready for the busy months, so we have 13 staff on full-time wages. We have to send them home.’
They added: ‘We usually source people from Jersey but this year some people came over from Portugal. These are people looking for work and money and we want to give them that and give them the hours they need to make any money over here. We’ve invited these people over to work for us and it’s caused them a lot of stress that we’ve had to cut their hours. They’ve got families and their own lives back at home, and they’re struggling to pay rent over here, let alone back home too.’
Ian Carr, director of Jersey Luxury Ice Cream Company which operates vans all around the Island, said: ‘I can’t remember a summer as bad as this. There were six days in July when there was hardly any trade or zero trade.’
Yesterday, when force-eight winds were battering the Island’s popular tourist spots, such as the Five Mile Road and St Ouen’s Bay, Mr Carr said he was ‘closed everywhere’.
Clare Carney, who opened Little Gem Beach Café in St Aubin this April, added that ‘trying to accommodate tourists in this weather can be challenging’ with limited indoor seating.
‘It’s my first season so I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but we do need a good summer to see us through the quieter months in the winter,’ she said.
But Martin Nduta, a forecaster with Jersey Met, said there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. He said that while another low-pressure system would form after the current one had passed through, meaning this wet and windy weather would stick around for the weekend, the weather would ‘significantly improve’ next week.
