Lack of snow impacts holiday business for some
Courtesy photo
Avid snowmobilers Greg, Ashley and Scott Johnson, of Fowlerville, who came north hoping for a long holiday weekend of snowmobiling, said they were disappointed with the lack of frozen precipitation, but were making the best of it. Area businesses are all hoping for a change in the weather this weekend.
REGION – Last year, with more than 30 inches of snowfall by New Year's Day, businesses on the east side of Antrim County were busy taking care of holiday visitors enjoying the snowmobile trails that crisscross eastern Antrim County.
This year, with very little snow on the ground – if any at all – that hasn't been the case.
"This sucks," said Annette Marcus of Elmira's Northern Bear Country Store, north of Lakes of the North last Friday. "There is no holiday snowmobile season this year."
With the lack of frozen precipitation, Marcus said she had not stocked the store as she regularly would for the holiday weekend between Christmas and New Years, usually one of the best of the year for Marcus and her husband Christian.
"Everyone we've talked to just had a small order for this weekend," she said. "It's just dead."
From Kalkaska to East Jordan along US-131 and M-66, where the Mancelona Motel's parking lot was also short of parked sleds and trailers – to all of the restaurants, bars, party stores and gas stations along the route – business appeared to be quiet, as were those in more out of the way locations, such as Lakes of the North's Settings Restaurant, which depends heavily on winter snowmobile business.
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