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by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
Inside room 411 of the Palm
Beach County courthouse, William Kennedy Smith is running up an
impressive legal tab as attorneys plod through the tedious chore of
selecting a jury for his rape trial.
While Smith spends money, local
businesses are making it. "The Trial, " as one hotel bills
it, is increasing sales of everything from hot dogs to ice cream.
"It's been a nice piece of
business," Rick Lamb, general manager at the Ramada Hotel Resort
in West Palm Beach, said last week. "The media is using the area
the same way tourists would use it, which is putting dollars into
everybody's pockets."
Entrepreneurs are tapping their
creative instincts for trial-related sales strategies.
A Palm Beach ice cream store is
pushing a new flavor-- Willie Vanilli. Vendors are hawking T-shirts
that heap good-natured-- as well as downright nasty-- abuse on Smith
and his uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy. And a West Palm Beach novelty store
added William Kennedy Smith masks to its Halloween inventory.
"We had three of them, and
they went right away," Mel Clark, manager of Crazy John's on
Military Trail in West Palm Beach, said Saturday.
"They didn't even look
like William Kennedy Smith, but they sold. We had a million people
come in after Halloween asking for them."
Since March, when a Jupiter
woman told police that Smith raped her at the Kennedys' Palm Beach
estate, both the estate and Au Bar, the nightclub where Smith and the
woman met, have become island landmarks.
"People are interested in
going over to Palm Beach to see Au Bar and the Kennedy estate,"
said Phil Peberdy, manager of Palm Beach Transportation, the parent
company of Yellow Cab. "The drivers are working it for what it's
worth. The Kennedy estate is now a tourist sight."
Hotel officials, while careful
to register respect for the serious nature of the rape charge against
Smith, gleefully await the next wave of reporters assigned to cover
the trial.
Hotels missed an out-of-season
windfall when the starting date for Smith's trial was moved from
August to October. Desperate to fill rooms during the sluggish
summer, hotel officials had offered the media bargain room rates.
Two of those hotels, The
Chesterfield Hotel and the Colony Hotel, are sticking to their summer
media rates-- $50 a night at The Chesterfield and $49 a night at the Colony.
But reporters staying at the
Brazilian Court on Palm Beach will pay $85 instead of the $70 offered
in August.
SILLY SIDE OF `THE TRIAL'
"If I wanted to come down
to what the competition is offering, I couldn' t get the same
services, and then it wouldn't be The Brazilian Court, " said
Nancy Wexler, the hotel's director of sales.
The Ramada has upped its media
rate from $46.95 to $52. But at the less upscale Hampton Inn, the $34
rate hasn't changed since August.
The marketing of "The
Trial" also has a silly side.
Sprinkles Ice Cream and
Sandwich Shop on Palm Beach is offering a variety of new flavors
inspired by major players in the Smith case. Heading the list is
"Teddy's Best," which features ice cream made with Sen. Ted
Kennedy's preference in liquor-- Chivas Regal.
"That's what he drinks, so
that's what we made it with," store owner Andi Williams said Thursday.
Other offerings: "Willie
Vanilli" -- ice cream with banana and nuts; Lasch's Lime, named
for Moira Lasch, the assistant state attorney prosecuting the rape
case against Smith; and Lupo Lemon-- inspired by trial judge Mary
Lupo's sometimes sour facial expressions.
"It's so sour it'll make
you scowl," William said. "We don't have anything yet for
Roy Black (Smith's attorney), but we'll come up with something."
Hot dog vendor Gilbert Martin
doesn't need a creative marketing approach. His hot dog stand sits
just a few feet from where Smith gets in and out of the station wagon
that takes him to court each day. That means a horde of hungry
reporters and TV cameramen are close by.
"I expect I'll do twice my
usual business," Martin said of his expectations for December.
Bars and nightclubs also are
counting on a sizeable chunk of media- related business. Reporters
already have bonded with certain after-hours hangouts, notably E.R.
Bradley's Saloon on Palm Beach.
Bradley's manager Mitch Reale
is planning a "Pre-trial Madness Party" for reporters on
Dec. 1, complete with a free buffet and a Lupo Look- alike Contest.
"They always work
together, so let's have a party where they can have some fun
together," Reale said.
MONEY-MAKING MEDIA
At least one area television
station also has panned gold from the Smith trial.
WPBF-Channel 25 (ABC) is
charging television shows to use the station' s satellite truck,
which bounces signals off satellites and back to Earth anywhere in
the world.
Demand for the trucks should
peak when the trial begins Dec. 2, said Lee Polowczuk, WPBF's news
director. He tried to set up a retainer system that would guarantee
income for his station and reserve time for visitors.
"They make last-minute
decisions," Polowczuk said, and it will cost them. "When we
go into a scramble mode, we just up the price a little."
WPBF has catered to a steady
stream of customers, including ABC News affiliate services, A Current
Affair, WABC-New York City and Good Morning America. Nightline paid
to go live with its Nov. 1 story on jury selection, and Inside
Edition used the truck Thursday.
The most common time increment
is a half-hour, which costs roughly $700 to $1,000.
WPBF is one of a number of
stations paying St. Ann's Catholic Church to park its truck in the
school church's parking lot across the street from the courthouse.
"It's a windfall for the
school, no doubt about it," church volunteer Claire Ross said recently.
Palm Beach homeowners also see
opportunity in Smith's legal problems.
A recent ad in the Paris-based
International Herald Tribune began, "Attention press, Palm Beach
Kennedy trial . . . " The ad offered a four- bedroom villa for
$25,000 a month.
Vendors are capitalizing on
Smith's legal dilemma with a growing selection of trial-related T-shirts.
One shows Smith's mug shots
over a phony classified ad in which Smith asks potential dates,
"Do you enjoy midnight romps by the ocean, hitting the late-
night spots or partying with well-known relatives?"
Another features a caricature
of Sen. Kennedy gripping a mug of beer and wearing only a knee-length
oxford-cloth shirt. The drawing is a take-off on a description of the
senator provided by an ex-waitress, Michele Cassone, who was at the
Kennedy family's Palm Beach estate the same morning the Jupiter woman
says Smith raped her there.
Susan Kennedy, the Palm Beach
publicist (no relation to the more famous Kennedys) who is marketing
those shirts, said the extra income kept her from going hungry during
her slow season.
"That's pretty much what I
lived on all summer," she said.
*Kennedy
Smith case table of contents
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