Trump’s activities are not hitting everyone equally.
Some of the businesses in Mar-a-Lago are especially hard hit and may be forced to close.
Some excerpts:
LANTANA, Fla. – President Donald Trump’s frequent visits to Mar-a-Lago have companies at a nearby airport in a financial nosedive.
The Secret Service closed Lantana Airport on Friday for the third straight weekend because of the president’s return to his Palm Beach resort, meaning its maintenance companies, a banner-flying business and another two dozen businesses are also shuttered, costing them thousands of dollars at the year’s busiest time.
The banner-flying company says it has lost more than $40,000 in contracts already.
The airport and its 28 businesses have an economic impact of about $27 million annually and employ about 200 people full-time, many of them making about $30,000 a year. They don’t get paid when the airport is closed.
Miller is already losing a helicopter company, which is moving so as not to deal with the closures. That will cost him $440,000 in annual rent and fuel sales.
Marian Smith, owner of Palm Beach Flight Training, said her 19-year-old business is losing 24 flights daily when closed and three students cancelled. She lost $28,000 combined the last two weekends and will lose $18,000 on this President’s Day weekend. She estimates her 19 instructors are each losing up to $750 a weekend.
“What’s frustrating is that we get little notice when this is going to happen,” she said.
David Johnson, owner of Palm Beach Aircraft Services, said his 27-year-old repair and maintenance business generates $2 million in sales annually, but has taken a hit over the last month and he fears it will cascade if flight schools like Smith’s close. He has written a letter he hopes gets delivered to Trump this weekend asking him, one businessman to another, to help resolve the conflict.
