CITY FOCUS:

As the triple-digit degree weather wanes, there’s one woman who really can’t complain. For Barbara Bigford, who has designed an unusual beach pocket umbrella, business couldn’t be better.

Huntington Beach store Zacks Too has sold about 100 of Bigford’s Beach Pockets umbrellas in three weeks, and it has orders to stock another 100, Bigford said.

Zacks is the first store on the West Coast to carry the Beach Pockets umbrellas.

The reason the umbrellas have been so popular is “customers don’t have a hard time holding them up in the sand,” said Michael Ali, owner of Zacks.

Ali was intrigued by Bigford’s idea and decided to stock some of the umbrellas, which is like any regular umbrella except it has four pockets attached to the base that can be filled with such items as sand, books, magazines and water bottles to hold it down.

The umbrella can withstand up to 20 miles per hour winds, said Bigford, a Pennsylvania native and an avid beach person.

The Beach Pockets umbrellas have been selling especially well in Florida, where they are available at select Walgreens and Albertsons stores.

While it might be normal to expect that the summer’s record hot temperatures would spur umbrella sales, that just isn’t so, Ali said.

“The heat in the sand was so brutal that they couldn’t stay even for an hour,” he said.

While carrying coolers, people already have their hands full without having to carry an additional weight to hold down their beach umbrella, Bigford said.

Ali said the lightweight umbrella, which retails for $29.99, has been selling out.

He and his wife took one to a Catalina Island trip recently. “It was easy to pack, easy to carry and easy to put up.”

The idea of a beach pocket umbrella, which is patented, has been incorporated by the upscale Lilly Pulitzer brand name.

The Pulitzer product tag claims the umbrella has an SPF protection of 50.

“You could use it at the pool or patio, too,” said Hollie Hutchinson, who was visiting Huntington Beach from North Carolina. “This could be something that anyone could set up — even children could do it.”

Bigford sold about 10,000 of the umbrellas in 2003 and plans to stock the product directly in stores to bypass costs of storing them in a warehouse.

The savings would be passed on to customers, she said.