FREEPORT – The continued slow recovery from the recession has led to a summer of limited growth for Freeport businesses, though changes in Canadian law have helped to spur some small sales increases and there is cautious optimism headed into the fall.

Janet Dutson, the executive director of FreeportUSA, the local merchants’ association, said her members reported limited growth this summer.

“I think most people were saying (business) was either flat, or a little bit up,” Dutson said. “That seems to be the general consensus, either they were right about the same (level as last year), or they were up 2 to 3 percent.”

“Some folks did tremendously well, where as some folks didn’t do as well as expected,” said Debora King, the executive director of the Greater Freeport Chamber of Commerce. “I think all in all, the feeling out there is pretty positive.”

“We did really well. Our same period last year numbers were up across the board,” said Matt Morrison of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine, which operates a Main Street restaurant. “So basically we did better this year than last year. That’s always the goal. When you look at any business, you look at the previous year’s numbers and see if you’ve had an improvement, and we definitely have.

“I would say it wasn’t (a) gargantuan jump,” Morrison continued. “But we were very satisfied.”

Susan Culkins, the owner of the Mangy Moose on Main Street, said her sales were on par with 2011.

“It was exactly the same as last year,” she said. “We’re hanging in there.”

One big factor behind any growth can be attributed to changes in the Canadian duty laws that went into effect on June 1. Now, Canadian visitors visiting the United States for more than 24 hours, but less than 48 can bring back $200 Canadian worth of goods duty-free, an increase of $150. In addition, any visit to the U.S. 48 hours or longer allows Canadians to bring back $800 Canadian worth of goods duty-free, an increase of the previous limit of $400 for a week and $750 for longer than a week.

Combine the increased limits with the fact the Canadian dollar is worth slightly more than the U.S. dollar (as of Sept. 17, the Bank of Canada valued the Canadian dollar at $1.03 U.S. dollars) and that leads to more visitors from north of the border.

“There definitely seems to be more Canadian people here,” Dutson said. “And I think that’s in part to the change in the rules around the duty. They can bring more over the border than they could in the past, and they seem very aware of that. I think it’s definitely increased the number of our Canadian visitors. It’s a pretty big increase in the amount of goods they can bring over. People feel that has really made a big difference.”

Another factor that can suppress sales growth is the weather. While most visitors hope for sunny days for their vacation, the hope is slightly different for merchants.

“There could have been a few more days that were cloudy or rainy,” said Dutson. “We had such great weather, and that can keep people going to the beach and not shopping. The perfect environment for us is a forecast of great weather and then in the middle of that is some cloudy days or a little bit of rain.

“Lots and lots of rain keeps everyone away. But a little bit of (rain) interspersed with great weather is the best thing for us. People are here, but they need a place to go and do something,” she said.

“I actually blame (slow sales) on weather more than anything else,” Culkins said. “We need more rain, we didn’t have any rainy days in July and then that first rainy day in August, we had the best day of the summer.”

“I think having the occasional rainy day makes a huge difference for the downtown merchants,” King agreed.

Downtown Freeport was certainly busy this summer, especially in July, when L.L. Bean held major celebrations to commemorate its 100th anniversary. On July 7 and 8, the company held an event where Main Street was closed to traffic and filled with vendors.

While it might seem that such a major event, drawing thousands of people into town would be good for business, that isn’t always the case.

“I think when they close the street off, it does nothing to help us,” Culkins said. “They (shoppers) are out in the street.”

“It may not have had quite the impact on the retail sector that we hoped,” King said.

“Some of those things can be mixed,” Dutson said. “After the L.L. Bean event, we did a survey of our members and people loved that there were people in town, but it can actually lower the amount of shopping that occurs on that day because there are so many things to do that people are diverted from shopping. So that can have mixed results. I think in the end, people think it’s great for awareness and there’s more visibility. But it can really have mixed results as to actually bringing more dollars to the cash register.”

Looking ahead to the big fall tourist season, Dutson said, she feels that things will continue to improve as the economy does.

“People are being cautiously optimistic,” she said. “Things are looking pretty good. You’re not getting people saying, ‘Oh, this is fabulous.’ There’s just kind of this feeling of things are about the same as they were or they are getting a little bit better.”

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