Some trendy us stores now accept euros

The rising value of the euro and the falling dollar have made the United States a bargain for Europeans, who are travelling here in increasing numbers.

Merchants have responded to the influx by accepting euros, something unheard of locally until the past year. Manhattan stores with global operations, like Tiffany & Co, have long accepted foreign currency, said Irwin Kellner, an economics scholar at Dowling College and chief economist for www.MarketWatch.com. But for the Hamptons, accepting the currency represents a retail sea change, said Newsday.

Bill Lawson, who owns the Shoe-Inn, said accepting euros was good business. "It's a way of saying that we welcome you to the Hamptons and to our shop," he added.

Stephanie Finkelstein, who owns The Elegant Setting, a tableware store in downtown Southampton, agreed.

"In this economy you have to make the client comfortable and make the process easy," she said. "I don't need to send them to Chase" to exchange money.

Pietro Bottero, the general man-ager of Annona Restaurant in Westhampton Beach, said he began accepting euros last summer after a customer had tried to use the currency to pay his bill. The manager on duty turned him down, but that changed in short order.

"It's one of the strongest currencies in the world," Bottero said. "So we said, maybe we should (accept it) if they want to use it." So Annona accepts euros, as does its sister company in the same building, Manhattan Motor Cars, a luxury-car dealership, which has rented cars to visiting Europeans.

The euro has steadily gained against the dollar. Two years ago, it was trading at 1.279 dollars. Last Tuesday it climbed to 1.579.

A German family strolling near the Shoe-Inn recently was excited about that prospect, Newsday reported. "We definitely will go shopping," said Frank Maue, who travelled with his wife, Kerstin, and their children, Kias, 9, and Cara, 12. "Clothes are definitely cheap, especially with the exchange rate."

In 2007, almost half of the nearly 24 million overseas travellers to the US hailed from western Europe, including France and Germany, both of which use the euro.

New York State had the highest share of that amount, 33 per cent.