Paia Plans a Party

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Fact Box

Final Friday of Summer

Paia Town's summer fling will be held from 5

to 9 p.m. Friday.

The schedule:

5-6:30 p.m., Paia Youth and Cultural

Center fashion show at Morning Glories Organic Internet Cafe. Featuring prints designed by the PYCC Girls Club.

7 p.m., Volcom

clothing fashion show, Hana Hwy Surf.

Featuring swimwear

and clothing. Includes sales and giveaways.

9:30 p.m., Zuni Migoze and Marimba Band, Moana Bakery

& Cafe.

Ongoing events:

Konrad's Ship Gallery, art opening party with new work from Katarin Joos

Sutrov Gallery, new art show from Maggie Sutrov

Avi Kiriaty Gallery, music by Karen B

Indigo Paia, new

container party sale

Ono Gelato, free

tasting night, featuring Hawaiian coffees and Maui-made brewed and iced coffee. Enter for free gelato for a year.

Paia Inn, party with DJ.

Paia merchants are hoping to lure more business their way with an end-of-summer event showcasing food, music and fashion in the north shore town struck by store closures and falling sales during these slow economic times.

"The merchants are trying to get some attention to Paia. We just want to draw more people in to bring life back into the town," said Valerie Kane, a member of the Paia Merchants Association and co-owner of Ono Gelato Co.

Kane said merchants want especially to draw in residents from outside the East Maui region who otherwise would never make their way to Paia.

"There is a lot of new stuff, and we want to show people what's here," she said.

The merchants' "Final Friday of Summer" will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, with the businesses staying open late and offering music, food samplings and specials.

Friday's event will kick off a new marketing effort by the businesses, the first of four special events to be held through the year. The others are a family-oriented fall festival around Halloween, a Paia Gives charity event during the Christmas holidays and a Spring Party, said Daniel Sullivan, acting president of the Paia Merchants Association.

While some businesses have recently closed down, Sullivan remains upbeat and said that not all businesses have suffered losses.

"I think it's always an up-and-down cycle for towns," he said.

"We've had a great month," he said of his business, Indigo Paia, which carries carpets, home furnishings, jewelry and other goods from Central Asia.

But Alan Cooperstein said July was probably his worst month and his Postal Plus Paia will close at the end of August.

"I'm going down hard," he said.

Cooperstein said his 16-year-old business never really recovered after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., but a continuing slump over the past few months finally is forcing him to choose between keeping his business afloat or keeping himself afloat.

North shore promoters and businesses are not holding enough special events that require posters to be printed; the county crackdown on illegal transient vacation rentals has wiped out his shipping business; and in any case, shipping costs have soared.

Cooperstein said visiting wind surfers staying in short-term vacation rentals on the north shore were frequent patrons, shipping their gear and souvenirs to their foreign homelands.

"Those were $500 jobs. . . . I'm out of all of it," he said.

Josephine's Lingerie & Boutique has closed, along with the old Nagata Store - for similar reasons of rising costs as well as older owners looking to retirement.

Kane said there are other Paia businesses that may be planning to close up shop in September.

Jud Lau, co-owner of Hana Hwy Surf, said his shop has been dealing with lower profits this year. He's seen a 19 percent drop in business compared to last year, but he said some of it could be attributed to a new surf shop's opening down the road.

Normally his clientele was 70 percent visitors and 30 percent local surfers, he said. With fewer visitors on Maui and on the north shore, that percentage has shifted to 40 percent residents.

Like Cooperstein, Lau attributes the loss of clients to the loss of transient rentals in East Maui as well as the enforcement of permitting requirements for beach weddings set up by Maui wedding coordinators.

Lau, who grew up in Haiku, said he welcomes the upcoming Paia Town events that he hopes will give back to local customers as well.

"It's really an awesome thing to get residents down to Paia and visitors too, even more so for the kamaaina. It's nice to get the local residents to Paia to see all the different shops we have in Paia, and a lot of the shops are locally owned."

Kane said her Ono Gelato business has been holding steady, attributing her success to the ability to attract local customers for gelato, a frozen dairy treat that is a unique product on Maui.

"We have a lot easier product to market than other merchants," she said. "We kind of have a niche."

But the Final Friday of Summer will help her business to showcase the gelato creations to residents who may not know what it is yet, she said - as well as her selection of locally produced coffees, jams and jellies.

Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.