LAKE COUNTY — When Pacific Gas and Electric Company shut down power to more than 700,000 of its customers for two days last week, including more than 37,000 in Lake County, local businesses lost revenue and inventory that in some cases totaled more than tens of thousands of dollars.
“It’s probably over $100,000 with everything,” said Grocery Outlet Lakeport Store Manager Olivia Wilson on Wednesday of the financial impact of the PG&E shutoff. Five days after power had been restored, the Main Street grocer was still trying to add up its losses.
About 30 Grocery Outlet stores were affected, Wilson said, by the massive PG&E power shutoff which the utility this week called “the largest single such shutoff event ever conducted in our industry.”
Like many retailers and other businesses and organizations around Clear Lake, Grocery Outlet in Lakeport was closed for two days.
“It was tough,” Wilson said.
Many of the store’s employees had been allowed to keep their shifts, despite little demand for work. “They have PG&E bills to pay,” Wilson remarked. “So we gave the work.”
The store’s food inventory losses were substantial, though Wilson did not know a specific dollar amount. “We had to order a 30 yard dumpster to throw away what we lost,” she said.
“It’s really sad,” Wilson continued, “because we really like to donate products from our store when we can…When we throw food into a dumpster that should’ve been good before PG&E threw us off, that really breaks our heart.”
While the Grocery Outlet discount retail chain works on a solution for its stores during future shutoffs, as Wilson indicated it’s doing, the losses already sustained are not likely to be recouped.
“It’s not a natural disaster where insurance companies are going to help you out that much,” Wilson said.
That assessment echoed comments made by some local governments in Lake County regarding the shutoffs. Both Clearlake and Lakeport’s city websites have released state-provided information on generally applicable resources that are available to small businesses in need. The resources don’t mention power shutoffs, but are being highlighted now as a way to close the gap for some who lost money last week.
“While the recent PSPS event was not officially declared a disaster, the impact to many local small businesses was substantial,” said Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora on Wednesday. “The City urges business owners to explore any resources that can help ease the burden of their costs associated with the PSPS or that are interested in expanding their business.”
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom—who blasted PG&E over its shutoff decision last week—urged the utility to offer $100 to each individual customer affected by the power outage and $250 to each small business.
For Gary Nylander, the owner of Oak’s Red & White Store on Highway 20 in Clearlake Oaks, that sum would cover just over one-tenth of one percent of the financial hit he took during the shutoff.
Nylander said the store lost about $20,000 over the two days it was closed. He estimated $8,000 to $9,000 revenue losses for each day, plus about $4,500 in temperature-sensitive food he had to throw out.
“It’s something we’re not going to get back,” Nylander said.
A generator to power the store would have cost Nylander $90,000, he noted. “I don’t have that kind of money,” he said.
The Red & White market is a Clearlake Oaks institution, having been in continuous operation since it was opened in 1933 by Nylander’s grandparents. The nearby Nylander County Park is named after the family. Gary took the store over in 1983, and he said this is “the first time we’ve been intentionally shut down.”
Ironically, Nylander’s monthly PG&E bill is one of the largest regular expenses stacked up against his losses during last week’s shutoff. “My last bill with PG&E was $13,000 for the month,” he said. “That’s almost double what it was seven or eight years ago.”
“PG&E, behind my payroll for my employees,” Nylander added, “is my second biggest expense for the grocery store.”
“This is pretty much, I feel, a political thing,” Nylander said. “‘We’re going to show you,'” he imagined PG&E’s attitude to be. “‘You’re going to blame us for the fires, this is what’s going to happen.’ They’ve gone overboard,” Nylander said.
Nylander reflected that the two-day shutoff had been cutting it close with a lot of his inventory, and estimated his losses would have been much greater during a longer outage. A five-day shutoff, which PG&E has asked its customers to prepare for, would likely see the Red & White shut its doors for good.
“We probably wouldn’t open up again,” Nylander said. Even one more shutoff like last week’s, he said, and “I would consider just closing the store up and saying ‘I can’t deal with this anymore.'”
Groceries around the county were affected much like Grocery Outlet and Red & White. Even some that stayed open say they lost revenue.
Deana Parlet, co-owner with Kenny Parlet of Lakeview Market in Lucerne, estimated about $8,000 in losses during the shutoff.
The store did limited business despite being one of the few groceries open. “I think people were pretty leery about coming out,” Parlet said. The store closed early each day and offered huge discounts on food items that it was struggling to keep cold, sometimes giving away products that were on the verge of being unmarketable.
Though the store had planned to rent, for about $5,000 a day, a 53-foot refrigerating trailer to keep its inventory cold, the scale of the shutoff had caused the company that owns the trailers to hold onto them for its own needs, Parlet said. In lieu of the trailer, Lakeview Market bought about $900 of ice to keep cold everything it could.
A generator would have cost $70,000, a cost the market “can’t afford,” Parlet added.
Gas station Rotten Robbie in Lakeport, like the majority of gas stations in the county, was closed during the shutoff.
“We sold zero food,” store manager Gary, who declined to give his last name, said. “We sold zero gas. On top of that we had to throw away all of our frozen stuff.”
He said Robinson Oil, the Santa Clara-based company that owns the Rotten Robbie gas stations, had paid the store’s employees for the days they didn’t work.
At Boar’s Breath Bar, Grill & Smoker in Clearlake, the shutoffs forced the restaurant to close down for two days. Though losses were minimized by the business being able to keep its food cold during that time, “Another day, it would have been more questionable,” said owner Suzie Stephenson.
While for many the shutoffs were an inconvenience, and for some a serious financial blow, at least one local business saw a surge in work last week.
At Sanchez Small Engine Repair in Lakeport, mechanic Scooter Holder said he was happy to have been able to fix what he estimated at about 30 generators in two days.
“I did fix a lot,” he said. Holder guessed that many of his ongoing fixes were prompted by the shutoff. “Now that it happened, everybody’s like ‘Oh, I gotta fix it,'” he said.
Though his shop lost power, he was able to run the equipment he needed on one generator, which he already owned.
Holder said he’s not happy PG&E cut the power, but was glad to have the business coming in. “That’s my livelihood,” he said.
