N.J. shore towns say Census numbers don’t add up

The Census said populations are down in some New Jersey shore towns.  At one town said the numbers just don’t wash.

Avalon New Jersey’s year round population dropped 38 percent to 1,334 people according to the new census.  Borough spokesman Scott Wahl said the streets are far from empty, even off-season.

“The day after Thanksgiving in Avalon we had a downtown event that we had more crowds during that event than we did during some summer weekends,” said Wahl.  “A lot of people find that the shore is a good place to be 12 months of the year, people are using their summer homes a lot more and there’s more activity in shore resorts on a year-round basis.”

Wahl said there’s evidence of more year-round business activity at the resort even with the official population drop.

“We’ve added a couple of new hardware stores, a couple of family eateries have opened as well,” he said.

Wahl said some people who really live on the shore, list somewhere else as their residence for tax reasons.  He says Avalon has no plans to try to dispute the Census figures officially or provide its own headcount.