Nearly a month after the College announced its new budget plan, many local business owners are expressing concern about whether the announced layoffs and spending reductions will have detrimental long-term effects on their establishments. Hanover area business owners and residents said they are feeling increasingly uneasy about the strength of the local economy as Dartmouth struggles to cope with the recession.
"When you start seeing the big players in this area start laying people off, there's a connection between the macro and the micro," Nigel Leeming, owner of Murphy's on the Green, said. "It makes people think twice, and it does make people psychologically pull back a little bit."
Everything But Anchovies owner Ed Bogosian said he thought most of the laid-off College employees would probably search for new employment at local businesses.
"I imagine they wouldn't look far for work," he said.
Rocio Menoscal, owner of Traditionally Trendy, said she has seen a slight increase in job applications, especially from former College employees.
"They are looking for work, but we can't hire them," Menoscal said. "We are full up."
When Dartmouth first announced the possibility of layoffs, many College employees also began to reduce their spending downtown, according to many Hanover residents and business owners.
Toby Fried, owner of Lou's Restaurant, said he began noticing the trend when College employees started eating less often at his establishment prior to the announcement of the layoffs.
"Before, no one knew who was getting laid off," Fried said. "They weren't going to eat if they weren't sure they were going to have a job. I totally understand. If I didn't have a job, I wouldn't be going out to lunch either."
Some business owners, however, said the economic recession has not significantly affected them.
Dirt Cowboy Cafe owner Thomas Guerra said he did not think tightened budgets at the College would hurt his business.
"A lot of our morning people are affiliated with Dartmouth in one way or another," Guerra said. "I think we are a luxury, but we are an affordable luxury."
Hanover's size and location largely insulates the town from the national economy, Leeming said, but any major changes by either of the two biggest employers in the area -- the College and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center -- might have a greater psychological effect on local businesses and their customers.
Many local businesses, especially restaurants, encountered a similar backlash after DHMC moved from Hanover to its current location in Lebanon in 1991, Leeming said. Medical center employees who took lunch breaks at local eateries downtown stopped coming, and business temporarily slowed, he said.
In addition to growing concern about the layoffs and salary freezes by the College, restaurant owners have also expressed mixed feelings about whether the College's proposed restructuring of DDS will affect their businesses. Most restaurant owners said that the closing of the Hopkins Center's Courtyard Cafe during summer term would probably have the biggest impact on local food businesses.
"The more they close, the better it may be for us," Fried said. "It's a supply-and-demand type of business we're in."
Leeming disagreed, however, saying that most of the eateries downtown should not expect to see major changes in business, despite the DDS restructuring.
"The net change is if students are all on dining programs, they will just go wherever the dining programs can fulfill their needs," Leeming said. "I just don't think that affects us."
