Residents Express Hope Quiksilver Will Return

* The second part of a two-part story. The first part was posted earlier Wednesday.

During Tuesday’s Long Beach City Council meeting, when several residents questioned and criticized the city for cancelling the festival part of the Quiksilver Pro New York surf competition, City Manager Charles Theofan dispelled the notion that the city signed a three-year contract with Quiksilver to hold the contest in Long Beach.

When residents inquired about obtaining the contract through Freedom of Information Law, Theofan said that the company simply had a permit with the city to hold a single event in Long Beach. Mike Matey, Quiksilver’s vice president of marketing, who attended part of Tuesday’s meeting, told Patch on Wednesday that Quiksilver has a three-year contract with the Association of Surfing Professionals, the foremost governing body in professional surfing, to run the Quiksilver Pro on the East Coast.

“It’s Long Beach for this year and we have a permit with Long Beach for this year,” Matey explained.  

Meanwhile, Mark Tannenbaum, executive vice president of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, told the council about the extensive time, effort and money he said local business and the chamber invested in anticipation of the full event. He estimated the lose in additional revenue to local merchants due to the nixed festival at $10 to $14 million, and that Quiksilver stands to lose $25 to $32 million.

“If you think they’re going to come back next year, chancing it will be cancelled, you’re crazy,” Tannenbaum said.  

When asked about those figures, Matey said he was unsure where they came from, since Quiksilver has not disclosed such numbers: “On the economic impact, we can only speculate,” he added. “And we plan to measure it after the event, so we can have real numbers.” 

Xavier Ceniceros was among the residents who expressed concern that Quiksilver may opt to not return to Long Beach due to the city’s decisions.

“Hopefully we can redeem ourselves and our reputation because, I’ll tell you,” Ceniceros said with enthusiasm, “they started the contest competition today and we got to see the world champion, Kelly Slater, surf on our beach, on our waves.”

Ceniceros said that the city’s leadership on Quiksilver matters “is less than we had hoped for,” and he called on the council to represent those who want to see Quiksilver return in coming years.  

Matey was pleased with Long Beach’s support for the original plans for the event based on Tuesday’s meeting. “It seemed like there was overwhelming support by the community that they’re in favor of the event and hope to see it come back,” he said.

Councilman John McLaughlin said that perhaps the city’s efforts to inform the public about the events “weren’t good enough,” and he conceded that the city should have had public hearings on bringing the event to Long Beach.

McLaughlin also suggested that matters were made worse by people who spread rumors — including that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were expected to play at the festival, and that 50,000 people would come to Long Beach for the first events — and he called on others to cease their Monday morning quarterbacking.   

“If this music festival had gone forward and we had packed them in, there would be this many people complaining that we didn’t take them into consideration,” McLaughlin said. “I understand that. And I think what we all have to do is, instead of throwing stones when we come up here and we give our opinions, it should be about how can we make this work better.”

Looking forward, McLaughlin expressed hope that the marriage between the city and Quiksilver can still work.

When asked about Quiksilver’s plans for the coming years in Long Beach, Matey didn't offer specifics about future plans. “Most likely, in the next couple of months, we’ll be working with the city to talk about next year.”