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Show Park City Businesses Score Again During Bustling Easter Holiday Few records were broken, but local ski resorts and merchants prospered during last week's Easter holiday, in some cases reporting business volume second only to this year's Christmas season. Park City Resort President Ray Johnson said the number of skiers last week was "substantially higher" than during Easter of their 1975-76 banner year. Although business was only 72 percent of this year's record-breaking record-breaking Christmas season, John-said John-said the Easter holiday equalled the skier count of Christmas week two years ago, the resort's all-time high holiday period prior to this year. Actual revenue was up 10 percent over Christmas 1975, due to increased lift ticket prices. The biggest day of the week was last Monday, both in terms of numbers of skiers and ticket sales, including five day passes, Johnson said. Business the rest of the holiday was "pretty even," with the exception of Wednesday, when poor weather kept skiers off the slopes. Johnson said he was "very happy," with the season overall and added that he was "confident" "confi-dent" this year's sales will equal the previous high 1975-76 season, in spite of the fact that the resort was not open last Thanksgiving, as it was in 1975. Although the snow is "getting thin" at lower elevations with the continuing sunny skies and warm weather, the resort president said conditions remain good on the upper mountain. "We will stay open as long as the snow is skiable," Johnson said. The resort had originally scheduled a May 8 closing date, but Johnson said he didn't think the mountain would still be open that long "unless we get more snow." Park West resort also reported a "good week," according to General Manager Dick Frost, although crowds were not as large as expected. Close to 3000 skiers were on the mountain Saturday, Frost said, but 30 to 35 percent lower than during their record-breaking Christmas holiday, and unlike Park City Resort, only half what was reported during Easter two years ago. Frost said ski conditions were still excellent at higher elevations, eleva-tions, but that the snow was getting slushy near the bottom. Business at Park West has been 20 percent lower than what was projected for the season as a whole, Frost said, even though the heavy snowfall produced excellent conditions throughout the year. Frost said the resort will probably close for the season in the near future. "We won't try to push it," he said. "I think we'll close the first part of next month." An exact closing date has not been set, but should be known by the end of the week, he said. George Polychronis, owner of the Mt. Air Market, Cafe and Variety store, reported excellent business at all three of his establishments during the Easter week. Polychronis said it was the biggest week ever for the variety store and the second biggest week for the market, behind this year's Christmas holiday. Although last summer's holidays holi-days have been the busiest for the cafe, Polychronis said the popular restaurant was busier last week than at any time since it was destroyed by fire and remodeled in the fall. Polychronis also reported record re-cord business this year for the season as a whole at Mt. Air Market. "It's been the best season ever, by far," he said. "Business is up 25 persent over two years ago." Dick Doty at the Family Jewels on Main Street also reported good business last week. "Christmas is our biggest time, but last week as a whole was very, very good," he said. "All we need is a rest." Jere Calmes of the Corner Store at the resort said his restaurant was not very busy on Easted weekend, but that the weekend before, at the start of the week-long holiday, was the "top two-day weekend of the season." As a whole, he said the Christmas holiday was probably better than Easter, however. Calmes, who is president of the Park City Chamber of Commerce, called this year's ski season "a pleasant surprise" after last year's no-snow disaster. "It showed us two things," he said. "We are still a major resort and we can't handle it." Citing transportation problems and beyond capacity crowds for local restaurants at peak periods this season, Calmes said the city will soon have to decide "whether to become a major resort or pull back and say we can only handle a certain number of people." |