NEW YORK, NY August 25, 2004 — Many area businesses are fearful that next week's Republican National Convention will amount to an obstacle course for operations in midtown. Others are confident it will be good for profits. And some don't need to guess - advanced bookings already paint a pretty clear picture of the impact of the RNC for them. WNYC's Fred Mogul has more.

FM: There's always something to fix at Pony Pedicabs, in Soho. Owner George Bliss is trying to get all 32 bike carriages in his fleet ready for the Republicans. He thinks they'll keep his drivers' legs churning.

GB: Cars can't get into places. Pedicabs can. There are gonna be all kinds of traffic disruptions. People are gonna be dis-oriented and lost - How do I get from here to there? I can get through.' Pedicabs to the rescue!

FM: Some of his drivers share his optimism. Others are downright surly. Heidi Benedict is sure it will be a nightmare.

HB: I don't know anyone in Boston who did well, business-wise, and I don't think it's going to be too good here, either. I just don't think anyone will be taking pedicabs, and I don't think it will be easy for us to get around.

FM: Mayor Bloomberg is upbeat. But lately he's been hedging his bets, saying that whatever the city makes, it's better than nothing.

MB: This is the quietest week of the year. So any business activity that we get from this convention -- and I do think it will be substantial, incidentally -- will be a plus. Will it take it up to the week before Christmas? Of course not. But it will help.

FM: Many hotels report being full -- or close to full. And so you can picture all the ice sculptures being carved and the dance floors being polished. Except that

HG: you can hear a pin drop in the NY event community.

FM: Howard Givner is president of Paint the Town Red, which is organizing 12 RNC events, including parties, a scavenger hunt and a gospel brunch. He's pretty satisfied with business - except he expected twice as many bookings.

HG: I ask all the venues that we do business with how they're doing with the RNC. And the vast majority of the responses have been that there's either nothing or a lot less action than they expected.

FM: That seems to hold for many caterers, banquet halls, restaurants, florists, DJ's, musicians, magicians. One caterer who took out a full-page ad in a special RNC issue of Biz-Bash won't be serving a single canap to Republicans. The trade journal's C-E-O, David Adler, says people had unrealistic expectations.

DA: Probably they were expecting to be filled every minute, but New York is a huge market, and it takes a lot to saturate New York.

FM: He says even if some businesses are suffering, the overall impact should still be huge. And if the economic figures don't bear this out, Adler says, so what? All the publicity will have been worth it.

DA: For example, Athens is having trouble filling all those seats. But if you look at the bigger picture, Athens is on television for two weeks straight, so it's going to have some impact on a long term basis.

FM: As with Athens, some are blaming lackluster economic activity on fear of terrorism. But that's good for some businesses. [Woof! Woof!] That's Philly, a playful 2 -year-old black Labrador retriever. Steve Vitale, at GSS Security Services, says requests for his company's bomb-sniffing dogs are twice as high as a normal week. The Times Square Alliance business district is one of several clients concerned about planted explosives.

SV: We do have an increased presence of our canine patrols -- we don't like to say how many, because we like to keep that secret -- but our dogs are out on Times Square at all different hours.

FM: Many of Philly's untrained canine counterparts will be going to kennels, as Republicans arrive and local residents leave. One kennel owner says bookings are up. He's curious: are people fleeing the RNC or simply making summer's last get-away? As customers drop off their dogs later this week, he hopes to find out why.