Stroll down Center Street, and you’re bound to see them: the dusty, two-toned “For Sale” or “For Lease” signs that dot the windows of the street’s many empty storefronts. These fifteen or so signs are hard to miss, as they occupy at least a couple stores per block in the street’s Business District, the so-called business core of the community.

But are these empty storefronts just a normal part of the ebb and flow of commerce in this small town of 6,700 people, or are they indicative of a much larger economic trend?

As owner of Jacks Flower/Trophy Shop for the past 20 years, Debra Turner has seen many nearby businesses come and go. For her, it’s just the nature of business in Taft.

In fact, Taft’s fourth-quarter sales-tax receipts (those on sales occurring between October and December of 2007) were up by 19.6 percent compared to a year ago. “It is true that some of the businesses and auto dealerships are struggling. That’s true; it’s undeniable. But the overall economy is doing quite well,” City Manager Bob Gorson said.

In comparison, neighboring Bakersfield’s sales-tax receipts declined by 4 percent, the taxable sales for all Kern County cities decreased by 2.1 percent, and sales-tax receipts for San Joaquin Valley as a whole were down by 3.1 percent, according to a report issued in spring 2008.

Empty storefronts may be a reality, some businesses may be fighting to remain open, and the town will soon have to deal with the fact that San Joaquin Motors, one of two auto dealerships in Taft, is folding, but Gorson and others are hopeful that the economy will continue to grow with time and through the implementation of a few new projects.


Some of the Center Street Successes

For Turner, the saving grace of her business has been the fact that she entered it as a local with connections, who inherited the customers who frequented Jacks before she took over.

“(My business) came with a clientele,” she said. “I have been really, really fortunate because I was born and raised here, my parents were here forever, my brothers and stuff that, you know, I’ve done OK. Grant you, I’m not retiring tomorrow, but I’ve done OK.”

She said she has noticed, however, that most of her customers recently have been from out of town, either from the Central Coast or from Bakersfield.

“I’ll tell you something really funny about Taft. Here, personally, I get a lot of customers from the Central Coast, Bakersfield, and the surrounding areas,” she said. “And yet the local ones don’t (shop here); they go elsewhere. I don’t know why. If anyone could ever figure that out, I’d like to know why. It’s always been harder to get local people to shop local.”

It doesn’t matter how old the shoppers are either, she said. Young or old, the trend has been to shop outside of Taft. “It’s just a comical thing,” she added.

(In fact, during the course of our interview, someone from Taft who now lives in Bakersfield called to order flowers for an ill friend.)

Across the street at Personal Style hair salon and boutique, business is also doing well.

“Our business, the hair business, is doing fine. We have been in business for many years, so we’re well established. We pretty much have our regular clientele, so we stay pretty busy in here and we don’t have to rely on new people,” owner Vickie Gregory said.

“The boutique? I still feel very lucky there, but (sales have) been down there. This is a hard month for me to really say if it’s up or down because it’s the summer, and the summer months, in terms of retail, have always been the lowest months.” She attributes this to the fact that people vacation and go out of town more during the summer.

Though Gregory said she didn’t really know anyone in Taft when she first started working as a beautician nearly 30 years ago, she said, “Taft has been very good to me. I love Taft. I believe in Taft. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful set of ladies, so I’ve always had that flow of traffic. A lot of people who start businesses in Taft don’t have that flow of people, and if you don’t have that, it’s very hard to get people to come and see what you have. That’s one of the hardest things for new businesses in Taft — to get people to just go and see what you have to offer,” she said.

Sue Colvin, whose daughter owns the newly opened dog boutique and grooming business Puppy Love, where Colvin works as a groomer, had stopped by Personal Style for a hair appointment — just in time to discuss local business with Gregory, in true hair salon fashion.

“I think it just became habit (to go to Bakersfield). Because Taft didn’t have much for so long, they got in the habit of jumping in the car and going to Bakersfield without even checking out what there was here,” she said.

Both Gregory and Colvin said that perhaps the hardest thing about starting — or maintaining — a business in Taft is that it is hard to get people to just see what they have to offer and that if more people chose to shop locally business might increase.

Colvin said she and rest of the Puppy Love crew have seen this firsthand, as few people are walking in to even see what the store has to offer. (And they even make sure that their prices are competitive with those at similar stores in Bakersfield, she said.)

“I know myself, I can’t cloth everybody. I don’t have stuff for everyone, and I’d be the first to say that,” Gregory said. “But a lot of people, for a lot of their needs, they might could find something if they just came in and looked. That’s true with every business. Just try us out; try the Taft merchants out. See what we have to offer.

“This town is never going to grow and succeed if the people won’t come and give us business. We can’t offer more if we don’t have a reason to offer more.”


The Auto Dealerships

Earlier this month, San Joaquin Motors announced their decision to close down shop. The decision wasn’t an easy one, sales manager Michelle Arnold said. It was something the company had been fighting and putting off for as long as possible, but in the end, the sales just weren’t there, and something had to be done.

“The city isn’t backing us; it’s as simple as that. The city continues to shop and buy cars out of town before they even give us a try,” Arnold said. “A lot of people say, ‘We were over in Bakersfield anyway, and you didn’t have a lot to choose from.’ But we are — we were — just as big as any Bakersfield store. We are as big as the Internet. If they had wanted a car, we could have gotten it.”

Last month’s cross-over report, which gives a break down of new and used car sales in the county, and includes information such as the buyer’s city of residence, is perhaps the clearest representation of this trend.

“There’s — what? — 15 sales here? And it looks like there’s two people not from our area — no, this is all our area. Not one person is from Bakersfield from Three-Way. Holiday Ford — three out of six. Jim Burke Ford — four out of five. This is crazy,” Arnold said while looking over the report.

“This is the kind of stuff we’re fighting against. If they’re buying a Ford, I can kind of understand it. But when they’re buying Dodges, when they’re buying Chevys, Pontiacs, Buicks, why don’t they support the community? Some of these people are businessmen. They own gas stations or they own mini-marts or whatever, and they’re the ones who shop out of town and then they tell us to shop locally. It’s crazy.”

The dealership couldn’t afford to have the same flooring as one of its Bakersfield counterparts and it couldn’t keep as many cars and trucks in stock, for obvious reasons, but Arnold said many customers didn’t even consider or stop by the dealership before choosing to go to Bakersfield or elsewhere.

“It takes a lot for a small town to run, and it takes community involvement. And when you don’t even have that, well…” Arnold trailed off.

“People aren’t into the city anymore; I really believe that. We used to have a closer-knit, family-oriented town. Not so much anymore.”

And that doesn’t bode well for the future, she said. “This town doesn’t realize what is going to happen (if both of the car dealerships) are gone. They’re too worried about Little Caesar’s and the 99 Cent Store moving in than watching two car dealerships move out.”

In an economy that is “going down fast,” as Arnold described it, the absence of at least one car dealership in Taft will mean the loss of a substantial chunk of tax dollars from the community, she said. It will also mean that the people of Taft will have to travel to Bakersfield or other cities to buy their cars.

A couple of blocks away at Taft Chevrolet, the other car dealership in town, the situation isn’t as grim. But that doesn’t mean that sales are on an upward trend. Business is down by about 50 percent, general manager Devinder Singh Bains said. Although the company usually sells an average of about 65 new and used units combined each month, it is now averaging a little over 30. Those numbers have forced the company to cut some business expenses while it is “trying to survive.”

“We were never (poised) to close, and we are not going to close. We are going to fight this economy. Taft needs an automobile dealership, and I’m going to try my best to provide Taft with one,” Bains said.

Since taking over the business in March 2004, Bains said he has seen sales increase by more than 20 percent, and he’s optimistic that business at Taft Chevrolet will pick up soon enough.

“I’m such an optimistic person that … I always look upstream to see what it is going to take for me to stay in business, not what it is going to take for me to close it,” he said.

And what it takes right now, Bain said, has been a number of cost cuts, including cutting the Taft Chevrolet workforce (the number of employees has gone from 42 to 22), advertising, and other services.

“There’s just enough money for us to stay in business. But we’re here, and that’s what counts,” Bains said.

“I’m saving a lot of (advertising) dollars because people just don’t have money to spend at this time in general. People who are in the market to buy — there’s always going to be enough people who are buying cars — they are the smart buyers. They’re shopping on the Internet, and they’re calling before they leave home.”

Though sales have been down overall, Bains said his Internet sales are up. Internet and out-of-town sales account for nearly 70 percent of his business, Bains said. He also said he always keeps at least two to four corvettes in stock, since he sells between 16 and 20 of the models a year (and most of those are in out-of-town, out-of-state, Internet sales).


Looking Toward the Future

Though the economy, at least on the surface, may look bleak, Gorson and other city officials are confident and optimistic that the situation for Taft businesses can’t help but get better. As a small indication
of this, Gorson said that when he first came to the town 20 months ago, he counted
26 vacant spots on Center Street. The
15 spots currently for sale or lease represent a slowly growing economy and a source of hope for him.

In the future, he hopes to strike an agreement with the Small Business Development Center in Bakersfield. If approved by City Council, the agreement would provide for someone to spend about four hours a week in Taft, during which time this representative would help potential business owners develop business plans and determine where their financing will come from before striking out on their own.

The City is also hoping to implement a Commercial Façade Program, which would focus on improving the overall look of Center Street, Gorson said. The grant program would be on a match basis of up to $20,000, which means that if an owner is willing to spend $20,000 to spruce up the façade of his business, then the City will give him another $20,000. This money could go toward such things as new awnings, landscaping, new signs, repairs, fresh paint, or new window treatments.

“We have $50,000 to start with, which isn’t much now,” Gorson said, “but it’s a start, and hopefully we’ll get another $50,000 and another $50,000 (in the future).”

“We can encourage and work with owners to do the Commercial Façade Program. We can encourage people to sell properties. These absentee landlords, maybe they’ll starting selling their property to someone who actually wants to own a business, rather than using it as storage or things like that that are occurring today.”

In the coming months, the City is also hoping to pass a nuisance ordinance, which would require building owners to repair broken windows and keep storefronts presentable.

Plans are also in the works for the City’s Redevelopment Program, which now includes about 900 acres, but will soon be amended to include the Center Street Business District.

Over the life of the project, Gorson and others believe they’ll generate $26 million in property-tax increment, which is a lot of money to invest in the community, he said.