Reminder: the minimum wage is always zero

Westport kayak operator turns turtle

After 15 years in business serving hundreds of thousands of paddling patrons from throughout the region, Downunder is closing its three Fairfield County locations after the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

The business had been struggling for several years, in tandem with the larger Connecticut economy and more recently in the wake of septic spills into the Saugatuck River that proved “the proverbial nail in the coffin,” owner Kim Hawkins told Hearst Connecticut Media on Tuesday.

Hawkins credits Downunder as the inspiration of Barbara Conroy, the former owner of the Rowayton Market, with the business starting as a boutique on the lower level of the market called Below Deck. In time, Downunder would expand to Darien and Westport, offering rentals, sales and lessons for kayaks and paddle boards, as well as summer camps for kids, naturalist tours, birthday parties, corporate events and other organized programs.

Things started to go south in 2016, however, with Hawkins noting the loss of corporate accounts moving out of state as well as some of its regular clientele. She added she had been trying to sell the business for several years, but that a few possible buyers turned away after septic spills into the Saugatuck River had customers questioning the safety of paddling. Hawkins cited Downunder managers Karen Jewell, Brenda Harrison and Nikki Fuentes for keeping the business running, particularly in the off-season the past three years when Hawkins has been living in California.

“It was very frustrating for all of us, but we hung in there, reducing expenses and trying to be innovative,” Hawkins said. “We started a ‘Paddle with a Pup’ program a few years ago ... A lot of people would come.”

In addition to its regular business, Hawkins has actively supported community charities, including the prominent Kayak for a Cause fundraiser that was held annually between 2001 and 2012, with hundreds of people raising some $2 million for varying nonprofits by kayaking across Long Island Sound.

The now-unemployed workers at these three stores will surely take comfort in reflecting that, had their employment continued, they’d have been awarded paid maternity/paternity leave, sick leave, “friends and relatives of employee” sick leave, and a pay raise to $15 per hour, all courtesy of their good-hearted legislators in Hartford, most of whom have never run a small business in their life.

Small businesses fail all the time, for all sorts of reasons (including the avoidance or abandonment of the state by large corporations who also support small businesses), but state-mandated expenses always hurt, and are often fatal. These remarks of House Minority Leader Themis Klarides regarding hiking the minimum wage to $15 sum it up nicely:

“Connecticut is among the most expensive places to live, it’s one of the most expensive and difficult places in the nation to run a business—stone cold facts that people who voted ‘yes’ tonight blatantly ignored. On top of that, they forced this through on the eve of rolling out a two-year state budget that’s heavy on not just middle class tax hikes, but one that also includes an insidious plan to burden the very people we need to help fire up economic recovery – small business owners.”