Aquarium Takes Funding Hit.

Faced with falling attendance and sagging revenue, Long Beach aquarium officials suffered a setback when Gov. Gray Davis gave the struggling tourist attraction a fraction of the $2.4 million in state aid they had been seeking.

The Aquarium of the Pacific's supporters, who once promised the facility would require no public funding, now say the state money is necessary to help cover operating costs and free up other money to make interest payments to bondholders.

But Davis approved only $500,000, heightening the scramble by aquarium officials to cut costs and find other public and private financing.

The $120 million aquarium opened in June 1998 to large crowds. But the most recent report to aquarium bondholders revealed a less glowing reality: Paid admissions during the busiest months -- July through December -- fell roughly 40 percent in 1999, compared with 1998.