Richard Whitfield has been a mulling over a name for his remote control car.

“I think I’m gonna call it Betty,” he said.

Whitfield bought Betty at Remote Control Hobbies, a store just north of Baltimore. He drives a truck for a living, and in his spare time he still likes to drive — by remote control. 

“Every day after work, go straight home, come right outside, pull it right out,” Whitfield said. “Bash it.”

Whitfield spent about $1,000 buying Betty, and has spent about $500 in the past year repairing her. He said even with some prices in the store going up as a result of tariffs, it won’t affect his spending. 

“It'll affect the bashing. I won't bash it as much,” he said. “So that way I won’t have to get it fixed as much.”

Remote control aficionados aren’t the only people affected by tariffs. The National Retail Hobby Stores Association, which represents brick-and-mortar merchants that sell things like model trains, games, and remote control cars, said that all of its members are seeing cost increases related to tariffs. And some stores say they have no choice but to pass those costs on to consumers. 

At Remote Control Hobbies, about a quarter of the store’s revenue comes from repairs. The rest comes from sales. Store owner Michael McEntyre said while a lot of the cars are designed in the U.S., pretty much all of them are made in China.

“There's a car that we carry that has increased $80 over the last month,” he said.

McEntyre has had to mark his prices up accordingly. But he said no one’s brought it up, and he thinks his customers, who he affectionately calls “RC guys,” are still going to be willing to buy.

“It's an addiction, when it comes down to it,” he said. “It is a rabbit hole, and a deep, dark one.”

About ten miles south, at Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle, customers stop to pet the dog, Hunter. Tony Tochterman, who owns the nearly 110-year-old store with his wife, Deanna, is trying to anticipate how tariffs are going to change things. 

“Nobody has any idea what the hell is going on,” he said. 

About three quarters of the store’s products are imported, and Tochterman said they are dealing with price increases from tariffs. One fishing reel that used to sell for $530 now costs $620.

“The thing that's funny about it — since they went up, I'd say a month ago, our sales have doubled on those particular reels,” said Tochterman. “When we bring it up to the people about the tariff, and sorry for the increase, people are more happy with getting the product than they're worried about the price.”

Tochterman said he thinks people are cutting back on things like eating out, but prioritizing their hobbies. 

“People are looking for an escape,” he said. “And fishing is a perfect escape. So we're not seeing sacrifices in this industry yet.”

But down the street, at Canton Games, owner Daniel Hoffman — who goes by Legend Dan — is worried about his store’s future.

“These tariffs have an extremely real chance of shutting down, not just my store, but my entire industry,” said Hoffman. “If you look around the store, absolutely everything you see is printed in China.”

Canton Games specializes in niche board games. If you’re the kind of person who thinks “Settlers of Catan” doesn’t have enough rules, Legend Dan’s got you. But those games — they aren’t cheap.

“A lot of the games I sell are $150, and scaling that up, it becomes unobtainable,” he said. “It’s just miserable.”

Hoffman is also worried he’ll have fewer new games to sell, period. He said lots of game publishers are holding off on creating new products until they have a better sense of what’s going on, tariff-wise. 

In the short-term, he’s planning to buy more collections of used board and video games. And for any new items with tariffs, he’s raising prices and telling people why. 

“What I'm forced to do is put a little sticker on a lot of my products, saying ‘tariff fee, X dollars,’” he said.

He’s also trying to keep costs down. He’d been planning to bring on another person — had even been doing interviews. But now, that’s all on hold.

“If Sarah's listening to this, I'm sorry, that's why we haven't called you yet,” he said. 

There’s one thing that gives Hoffman hope. He said if you buy a board game today, it’ll entertain you for years to come.

This is kind of a theme among everyone who’s passionate about their hobby: They think of money spent as an investment in future enjoyment.