Limo Firms Stall as Their Clients Forgo the Frills

Carmen Brown says the limousine business is like the proverbial canary in a coal mine.

“All of us in the limousine business felt this recession a long time before anyone else,” said Brown, who with her husband owns and manages A Moment’s Notice Limousine Service in View Park. “We were the first thing to go.”

In most communities, limousines are used for prom nights, weddings and anniversaries, and the occasional corporate splurge. But in Beverly Hills, Century City, Hollywood and other Westside domains of the rich and powerful, the sleek Cadillac, Mercedes and Lincoln limos are almost a more common sight than RTD buses.

At least they used to be. With the recession, limousines have become too much of a luxury. And that means hard times for limo operators such as Brown, who depend on the Westside for much of their business.

“The whole business is falling apart,” Brown said. “Leasing companies are repossessing limos. All of us are about two months behind on our notes.”

Right now, it’s prom season, which means Brown’s firm and others have been granted a temporary reprieve, staying busy ferrying high school students back and forth to their affairs.

A Moment’s Notice is booked through June, Brown said. But once prom season is over, Brown expects her business to drop off to where it was last month--slower than perhaps any other time since she began the business six years ago.

Brown said she began feeling the recession two years ago, even before word of the impending economic downturn began making the rounds. Companies large and small started to cut back on their use of limousines for a night on the town or a ride to the airport. Some downgraded to using smaller coach vehicles, even if they could afford the traditional or stretch limos, because they didn’t want to appear frivolous when such hard times were on the horizon.

“All my corporates, they all cut back--the record companies, the studios,” she said. “People began using alternatives.”

Brown, like many other small local operators, runs her business and her fleet of five Lincoln limousines out of her home, she said. The company caters to a variety of business and entertainment clients, including CNN and its founder, Ted Turner, UCLA and musicians such as the Temptations.

Even her richest clients have felt the pinch and cut back. “They feel it as well as we do,” Brown said.

And the super-rich, including the Hollywood moguls--well, they have their own limos and chauffeurs, she said.

Brown’s situation sounds all too familiar to Alan Shanedling, president of the Limousine Owners Assn. of California, which is based in Los Angeles and has most of its 150 or so members here.

“I’ve heard of a couple (of firms) that went under, some that have merged, and a lot that are in trouble . . . an awful lot that are in trouble,” Shanedling said.

In informal surveys of his members, Shanedling said, he has found that even among those businesses and individual clients that can still afford to use limousines, many are opting for less ostentatious alternatives, except on Oscar night and for other formal events.

“People are saying, ‘Business isn’t so good, so we don’t want to be seen in limos,’ ” said Shanedling. He said his own firm, Barrons-Fleetwood Transportation in Culver City, is among those that are hurting financially.

Those companies that do continue to use limos are taking longer to pay for them, which puts limousine firms in a very precarious position since they have to pay their insurance, car payments, chauffeur salaries, gas and other expenses up front, Shanedling said.

The limousine association, in fact, plans to spend its next meeting, on June 11 in Los Angeles, discussing ways to help limo firms deal with the recession and handle their cash-flow problems, Shanedling said.

So far, Brown’s loyal clientele and low rates--$41 an hour for corporate clients--has allowed her to stay afloat during the rough times. She said she is anxious about how the market will turn out, and tries to cut costs as much as possible to protect herself.

Brown has had to cut some prices, especially for stretch limos, she said. And she has made one major sacrifice: She hasn’t been able to add a 1991 Lincoln to her fleet of limos, as she’d hoped to do.

“I don’t want to stick my neck out,” she said. “Let’s see what happens first.”