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Teeming with tourists
Prince Edward County, we have a problem. I know, I know. That should be “Houston, we have a problem”. I saw the movie, too. But, we aren’t in Houston, and Prince Edward County has got a problem. Oh, it does. It’s suffering from growing pains. It’s got tourists all over the place. It’s painful to watch. It’s a pain to get around. The County roads are clogged. The County retail stores are clogged. The County farm stands and grocery stores are clogged. The restaurants are clogged and their kitchens are slammed. There’s always a long line at the gas pumps, and if you’ve had the pleasure of needing to go to the hospital emergency room recently, it’s also clogged. Our local beaches are often closed before noon because of the crowds. It’s all sort of good in a growing-pain kind of way. I’m sure there’s a cure for handling the massive volume of tourists that we’ve seen in 2017, but it’s going to take a long time for the medicine to relieve the pain. It definitely isn’t going to be resolved this season. Right now, this is a “too many tourists not enough infrastructure to handle them” situation. Apparently, we wished for, and got, a booming tourism industry. Uh oh.
In past columns, I’ve suggested the locals (we know who we are) should just smile, be patient and wait it out. I’ve told people to avoid the beaches at peak times. Leave those restaurant dates for the fall and winter when the restauranteurs will be begging for business. Forget about treats like beer or wine or ice cream. But even I can’t always take my own advice. A gal like me needs to go to a restaurant every once in a while, no matter what the season. Now, when LOML and I decide to dine out, we actually try to time our dining experiences around the unlikelihood of tourists being there when I’m hungry. This past weekend we broke my rule and actually scouted a location, then made our dining-out decision based on the number of vehicles in the parking lot. That’s right, we scouted the freakin’ location. Who does that? The answer is, a woman desperate to eat something she didn’t cook. And I’m great with all the marketing and publicity the County is getting. It’s what the doctor ordered for local business owners, right? What about the cost to local residents who often have to head to BelleVegas for a treat? And there are other costs related to such rapid economic/tourism grown. From what I’ve been hearing, a lot of visitors are not as impressed by the long waits for service in places where, due to high customer volumes, they have run out of products and are trying to get by with staff who might not be welltrained or experienced and with seasoned staff who are run ragged by the crazy hours they have to work.
Oh, we’ve got pains and problems, Houston. Recently we’ve all heard about, or seen, incidents of road rage. Most of us have been in the grocery stores and looked longingly at shelves that have been picked clean. Hey, it’s not just the tourists who like to roast marshmallows or barbecue a wiener or a burger. The grocery store managers try to keep up with the insane volume of shoppers, but sometimes they just can’t anticipate what each week will bring. And let’s talk about farm stands. I love them, but I’m not keen on pulling into a parking lot so crammed with vehicles it’s unsafe to even think about grabbing a dozen ears of corn for dinner. This might be the first year I’ve picked up a batch of beets only to have them snatched from my beet red hands by someone in a soggy bathing suit and Tweety Bird towel who then asks me what “beets” are and if they should be eaten with something.
The pain is real. It’s half-past August and we’re almost at the finish line. In no time we’ll be thinking about how many pounds of turkey to buy and how thankful we should be for surviving a much busier encounter with our burgeoning tourist economy.
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