As I was walking over to the mall parking lot to retrieve my car following the parade, I spoke with several vendors, none of whom would give their name for a story. So I'll leave them out of the newspaper.
But online here, I don't mind so much using the information from sources who don't want to be named.
They all told pretty much the same tale: That even though the parade crowd is as big as ever, or maybe bigger, people are spending less.
Sales of everything from balloons to soda pop have been sinking for years, the vendors said, because people have fewer dollars in their pockets.
They said they're pretty sure that what's happening is that Bristol families "don't have the kind of money they did in the past," as one of them told me.
Another said he knows how it is. He sells stuff at parades and similiar events to stretch his own income from a factory job, he said, and he's increasingly tight with the money that does find its way into his wallet.
"I go to a ballgame sometimes, but I don't buy a hotdog anymore," he said.
Don't think for a second that if this trend is generally true that the marketing people who are going to decide what, if any, stores to put downtown in the years ahead aren't aware of it.
It's a tough time in Bristol -- and beyond -- to convince people to spend a little more.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
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