GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Debra Tappe spotted this undersized pine yesterday while shopping for a Christmas tree at Star Market in Moiliili. "Usually I wait and see if they have any leftover ones," she said. "It seems like they're gone. Most of them are gone. ... Usually they have trees for quite a while."

Christmas tree
shoppers finding
slim pickings

Sellers, expecting a downturn in
demand, brought in fewer trees
and sold them all fast

---

By B.J. Reyes
breyes@starbulletin.com

In search of a Christmas tree for her sister, Wendy Ramos' hunt yesterday started near her home in Kaneohe but wound up in Moiliili.

After having been to two stores already -- one was sold out; the other was too expensive -- she finally decided on a tree that, admittedly, wouldn't have been her first choice.

"I guess this is the one because this is the best one that I can find," she said.

With Christmas only a week away, if you don't have your Christmas tree by now, you may be out of luck in finding a good one at a relatively inexpensive price, according to tree shoppers we talked to yesterday.

"Usually I wait and see if they have any leftover ones," said Debra Tappe of McCully, looking for a bargain at Star Market in Moiliili. "It seems like they're gone. Most of them are gone. ... Usually they have trees for quite a while."

Some Christmas tree retailers say the state's economic situation in the aftermath of Sept. 11 had many sellers planning for a slowdown in sales, prompting them to order fewer trees.

"We did a major cutback from what we normally do," said Cliff Laboy, who sold out his supply of trees over the weekend. "If we brought in what we normally bring in, we'd probably have 2,000 trees left that we wouldn't be able to sell."

He declined to provide an exact sales figure.

Laboy, who has been selling trees on Oahu since 1986, said even though he brought in fewer trees, he still made his usual donation of trees to charities -- 300 to 500 trees.

"It's not a profitable year for us, but then again, it's not a profitable year for a lot of people," Laboy said. "We realize and understand what a lot of people are going through."

One seller who did not cut back on stock was Kale Gumapac of Northwestern Christmas Trees on the Big Island.

"Fortunately, the response we're getting from people is that because of Sept. 11 ... they need to try to get some semblance of normalcy and something positive going back into their lives," Gumapac said. "This was one way to do that, was to buy a Christmas tree and celebrate Christmas like they've never celebrated before."

Gumapac said he wrestled with the decision to maintain his typical stock of about 2,500 trees. As others sold out, he became one of the only sellers in town.

"By Thanksgiving weekend, retailers this year were running out of Christmas trees," he said.

Gumapac said he even shipped over about 500 trees from a sales point in Hawaii Kai because the demand in Hilo was so heavy.

Due to the recent bad weather, the shipment was a day late, Gumapac said.

But by the time he opened for business on Saturday, "People were waiting. There were long lines. We got about 200 trees sold within a five-, six-hour period, which is fast."

He expects the remaining trees to be sold out by today or tomorrow.