Rainy Summer Taking Toll On Local Businesses
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – There's nothing that says summer more than a scoop of ice cream, but the owner of Handel's Ice Cream in McCandless says he can tell the weather by the day's receipts. Rain dampens the ice cream desire.
It's also done a number on swimming pools. Allegheny County's pool attendance numbers are down 40 percent.
With golfers unable to drive to their golf balls due to soggy conditions and forced to park on the cart paths and walk, golf rounds are down all over the region.
For the Allegheny Parks courses, receipts are off about five percent.
When you spend your day replacing roofs, rain is a nemesis.
"It's been a bad year. The bottom line hurts. It hurts bad," says John Mast, of J&N Roofing. "We haven't had a full two weeks this whole summer."
Carl Vent was taking advantage of a dry spell to cut whatever he could.
"Front yard because of the hillside, there it's draining off a little, but the back where you go, it's going to be wet," said Vent, of Ross Township.
Landscaping services have no choice but to cut it all.
"It can get so swampy, and then like the tires and stuff will track down and it's not good," said Frank Maiola, a landscaper.
But on the other hand, Maiola says, "It's been pretty nice. I've had to cut a lot of people's grass so much because everything is growing so much. There's a ton of weeds around."
Those weeds are bringing folks into Best Feeds for products to battle mold spores and the insects that are thriving and killing plants. Of course, the rain is doing a number on the plants as well.
"We've had so much rain, they've literally drowned and we have to replant," said Kurt Malecki, of Best Feeds.
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