Whether the 2002 Winter Games become a budget's friend or foe likely depends on which side of the Olympic Superstore's 24 cash registers you are standing.
According to Susan Summers, director of licensing for the Salt Lake Olympic Committee, the Olympic Superstore, located next to the Medals Plaza, is 30 percent to 40 percent ahead of SLOC's fiscal projections.
But for every budget surplus there is an equal and opposite deficit and SLOC's windfall owes everything to personal budget breakers like Paul Houston from Washington, D.C.
"It's the Olympics. What are you going to do?" he said.
Houston entered the store Wednesday looking for stuffed animals, hats, T-shirts, and "maybe a few pins." By the time he reached the dutch ovens he had also picked up a sweatshirt and a cow bell. "It's impulse shopping," he admitted.
A combination of the "overwhelming response" from Salt Lake residents and the success of the U.S. Olympic team has produced what Summers calls a "hot market."
Summers expects the market will steam right up to Thursday, the expected closing date.
By then the store will have made more than $10 million, Summers says, about $3 million more than expected.
Bunny Mason, a shopper from Laramie, Wyo., says she has been "pretty strict" with her budget so far. She carried her shopping list ? "T-shirt, shot glasses, hat and pins" ? around the Superstore until she found the Olympic vest she had seen around town.
"I knew I was going to get it," Mason said as she tried on the vest. She also decided she'd better buy a pin of Powder, one of Salt Lake's three Olympic mascots, to match her name.
Lucky for Mason the pin is located somewhere near the bottom of the Superstore's price spectrum. On the opposite end is the Dale Chihuly Olympic vase, which recently sold for $6,500.
By noon the crowds at the store are usually such that store manager Vince Owen is forced to stagger the flow.
The wait to get into the store can stretch to 45 minutes at times. But Owen says most patrons are content to wait.
It is the niche products, such as Houston's cow bell, that have helped boost the store's sales, Summers says.
She says shoppers should not plan on seeing prices for their favorite items falling after the Games end. "Right now were just trying to keep them in stock," she said.
E-MAIL: joliver@desnews.com