Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, Photo by Ashley Guttuso

If you know Tucson, you know extreme heat.  A typical summer day can bring temperatures near 110 degrees, and the Tucson nighttime is like a warm spring afternoon.

For those who can’t stand the high temperatures, summer is the time to leave Arizona for a few months and find cooler temperatures before returning again in the fall.

With the University of Arizona students on summer break and the snowbirds gone for the season, small businesses and the hospitality industry see a directly correlated drop in business and profitability.

“With so many students going home during the summer and other people leaving, and the advent of hot weather, it doesn’t promote business.  Between May and August there’s a depressing factor there,” said Michael Varney, CEO and President of Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Small businesses prepare months in advance to make up for business that will be lost in the slow months of summer.  “The heat keeps people inside, and the businesses don’t see the same traffic,” said Varney.

The typically busy commercial area of downtown Tucson along Fourth Avenue features sales events like the “Mayhem on 4^th Avenue” event promoted by the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association set to take place starting today.

“Spontaneous Sales and Savings” are promised to shoppers who bring their business to 4^th Avenue shops starting at the beginning of the slowest season.

“You can absolutely see the difference in this place once summer hits,” said Faith Flynn, a resident of the downtown area.

Flynn said the lull in traffic makes for a much more quiet neighborhood, but perhaps too quiet for what businesses would like.

In another life, the decorative vase fermented beer in the Amazon, a mixture of mashed sweet potatoes, river water and a little spit.

Michael Bernstein and his wife Jeanne travel the world looking for these handmade pieces to then sell in their Tucson shop, Colonial Frontiers. This is the future direction of small businesses: selling niche products with international connections.

Although an April report by the World Trade Organization predicted a weak year for global trade as European economies continue to flounder, niche businesses can often outride these storms, with the needs of their precise markets unaffected, according to Eric Nielsen, the director of the Arizona branch of the U.S. Commercial Service.

In Tucson, proximity to Mexico has created a market for specialized small businesses to both import and export goods internationally.

By: Zack Rosenblatt and Kyle Johnson

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In season four of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson was arrested for a DUI and lost his driver’s license.

Marge convinced him to give up beer for one month. With the struggle getting harder by the day, Homer attended a baseball game to try and take his mind off of sobriety.

As it turns out, he’s the only person in the stands NOT drinking a beer.

“I never realized how boring this game is,” Homer said, as the ball boys argued over who would retrieve a stray beach ball that landed on the field.

Now imagine a baseball game at the University of Arizona. It’s a blazing hot, Sunday afternoon — the perfect time for a nice, cold brew.

Except the stands were empty, and beer wasn’t for sale.