Locals discount card gets no traction

TELLURIDE – Shouldn’t ski town residents get discounts for being locals? Wages tend to be low, rent high and, come March, tempers short.

Many businesses do give out discounts for local residents. But merchants, restaurateurs and other businesses in Telluride have so far resisted the idea of creating a “Local’s Card.”

The Telluride Daily Planet finds the idea still lacks broad appeal among businesses. It rubs some business managers the wrong way. Instead, they favor loyalty programs for repeat customers.

“Does a person in Chicago walk into a store and say, ‘What’s my local’s discount?’” asks Penelope Gleason, co-owner of Bootdoctors, an outdoor goods and rental company.

Then there’s this very fundamental question: Who decides who is a local? “It’s a very awkward, if not humiliating, conversation to ask customers to prove they are ‘local,’” Gleason said.

To wean customers off the entitlement psychology, Gleason’s business implemented a program that rewards customers for repeat business. Too, locals have access to deeply discounted prices during the off-season when the visitors have gone.

Todd Brown, a business coach, tells the Planet that the idea of a discount for locals has proven contentious for decades. Several ideas have been floated, but none have gotten traction.

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Moto-snowbiking next, big thing?

ASPEN – Alex Dicharry thinks that motorized snowbikes will be the next big thing in mountain recreation.

Dicharry, owner of Aspen Motoworx, says the technology has been around for 15 years. Polaris, the snowmobile manufacturer, has recently introduced kits to convert the wheels of a motocross bike into sleds. What remains to be added are more insulation and horsepower, plus heated grips and hand deflectors.

“That’s where we come in as the mad scientist,” Dicharry told the Aspen Times. “This is my laboratory.”

Sooner, rather than later, he said snowbikes will be available for purchase directly, without the lab work.

With the tracks required for snow travel, a snow bike is about 50 pounds heavier than a motocross bike. It’s still much lighter than a snowmobile, however, making it easier to maneuver in deep snow. On hardpack, however, the single track on the front makes it harder to navigate

Dicharry said he expects motorized mountain bikes will soon have a place in the motor-friendly X Games.

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New resort crosses a big threshold

SQUAMISH, B.C. – Provincial authorities in British Columbia have given a proposed mountain resort the green light, although proponents of Garibaldi at Squamish still must secure a multitude of permits – including, problematically, the support of other municipalities in the region, including Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton.

Whistler, located about 45 minutes away, challenges Garibaldi’s plans to offer skiing. While just as high as Whistler, it’s closer to the ocean and Howe Sound. As such, says Whistler, it’s more vulnerable to the effects of warming temperatures.

Squamish, at the foot of the proposed resort, objects that Garibaldi does not meet the community’s smart-growth and sustainable land-use plans. Squamish also has concerns about water supply and wildlife habitat.

Proponents estimate the resort would provide many new jobs and generate near $50 million in additional tax revenue.

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Talking trash: Aspen & Pitkin County

ASPEN – Officials in Aspen and Pitkin County last week sent out a press release announcing that local residents produce 9.1 pounds of garbage per capita compared to the U.S. average of 4.5 pounds.

Really? Well, not exactly, acknowledged county officials when asked to clarify. That figure is all the material that goes to the local landfill, including part-time residents and visitors.

“Every tourist town is going to be above average,” said Liz O’Connell, the city’s waste reduction specialist. The decision to attribute the trash to locals, not visitors, is partly because those conducting the study didn’t think they had a good way to measure the number of people in Aspen at any given time.

Aspen has a second reason for statistically lumping in the refuse of its part-timers and short-timers with that of the full-year residents: They constitute the local economy, and as such Aspen feels responsible for them, too.

“When you realize that we need to be responsible for the visitors, that catches people’s attention,” says O’Connell.

Aspen has taken many steps to divert the stream of trash to the landfill. It has bear-proof recycling containers on major street intersections. The city hall and county have both composting and recycling bins. And the town has eight companies that provide varying recycling and composting services.

The community has a good reason to want to divert trash from the landfill. Given existing rates of trash, the landfill will be full in 15 years. The landfill may be expanded, said O’Connell, but that’s not a given.

Aspen city officials now want to have conversations with the community to see what can be done. What’s important, says O’Connell, is not how much trash Aspen generates, but rather that strategies be created to reduce it.

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Resort towns welcoming refugees

BANFF, Alberta – Catholic and other Christian organizations in the Banff-Canmore communities have been prepared to welcome a few refugees from Syria. The Bow Valley Syrian Refugee Project has been planning to host a family of six, and there may be others.

“The local organization has leased a two-bedroom, two-bath unit in Canmore, and the new arrivals will likely be given free access to the local buses in Canmore and Banff.”

Locals tell the Rocky Mountain Outlook that they intend to provide support for a year, although they note that refugees may find broader support from the wider Syrian community in Calgary.

“If we get a year to a year-and-a-half down the line and the family decided that they would have better opportunities in Calgary, then that would be considered a success,” says Jill Sawyer, a spokeswoman for the refugee volunteers.

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Tiny house on wheels riles neighbors

JACKSON, Wyo. – Give Tristan Clegg an A+ for resourcefulness. Just the same, the 21-year-old snowboard instructor at Jackson Hole is back to surfing couches.

Clegg, of Salt Lake City, had encountered the steep cost of housing last winter in Jackson. So, this summer he improvised a camper to fit on the back of his Ford F-250. Then he found somebody who agreed to let him park it in the driveway.

It’s not exactly pretty. A photo in the Jackson Hole News&Guide shows something that is Pepto-Bismol pink. That’s because there was some cheap paint in the “oops section” at Home Depot. In that way, he created his portable tiny house for just $2,000. It has a cook stove and a refrigerator and, of course, a bed.

It lacks a bathroom, but the person who gave him permission to use her alley-facing driveway also gave him a key to the house so he could use the bathroom and shower.

Susan Pieper said she was motivated to help out a young resident but was also driven to compensate for having a large home with only two occupants. She called it a “way to offset my carbon footprint to share the planet with someone whose carbon footprint is much, much, much smaller than mine.”

But neighbors were unhappy, and so Clegg has been evicted from his free space, as the living arrangement violates town laws. Paul Anthony, a planner for the town of Jackson, said the issue of tiny houses remains to be resolved.

“We will have to address that, whether it’s tiny homes or 250-square-foot studios, for seasonal workers especially,” he told the News&Guide.

Jim Stanford, a town councilor, has suggested a campground in Jackson for seasonal workers. When younger and a seasonal himself, Stanford camped for three weeks.

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Buy cannabis? Yes, but don’t smoke it in public

ASPEN – No doubt, the smell of marijuana was ample last weekend at the X Games. It was also illegal.  You still can’t smoke cannabis in public in Colorado.

But if it’s legal to buy, where can you use it? Colorado towns and cities continue to struggle with that conundrum. As the X Games approached, one promoter applied to Snowmass Village to hold a private marijuana vaporizer party on the patio of a music club. The town said no, having decided there was no way to make the event non-public, even if the promoter sold one-day memberships.

Another promoter had better luck a few miles away in Aspen, where Boogies, described by the Aspen Daily News as a prominent shopping destination, was transformed into a venue for an invite-only X Games week party.

The party was sponsored by a local marijuana store and a promoter that specializes in cannabis events. The promoter Freddie Wyatt, of Munch and Co., told the newspaper he expected 400 to 600 people a night, “We function literally as a house party. We know everyone who walks through the door,” he said.

What was different between Snowmass and Aspen? Linda Manning, the Aspen city clerk, explained that the event at Boogie’s was run as a private party with a guest list and no money was charged to invitees.

Aspen regularly fields requests from promoters hoping to operate a private club where anyone interested could purchase memberships and then consume marijuana in a controlled social setting. The promoters can make lots of money that way. Others have inquired about pot-friendly limousines or shuttle services. The answer, in all cases, is no you can’t.

Despite his success at Boogie’s, Wyatt was before the city council to urge laws that would allow precisely what had been rejected at Snowmass, a club for consumption of marijuana.

The Aspen Times notes that Colorado has a handful of so-called pot clubs that operate because of private memberships. Jim True, Aspen’s city attorney, said the legalities are too hazy for Aspen to allow clubs at this time.

While laws are being proposed to address this hazy issue, said True, an amendment to the Colorado Constitution may be necessary to address the question.

– Allen Best

For more, go to: mountaintownnews.net

 

 

 

 

 

– Allen Best For more, go to www.mountaintownnews.net.