Avoid Delaware North at all costs

A bit of googling and it appears that DNC paid the Curry Company $61.5 million for their Yosemite assets. That included trademarked slogans such as “Go Climb a Rock” and intellectual property such as the names of the Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village and Badger Pass.  Of course, it also included the buildings, their contents, the business’ goodwill, etc.  And then, in this latest round of contracts, won by Aramark, Aramark was not required by the USPS to pay DNC for IP, contrary to the DNC/USPS contract.  So it seems DNC has a valid claim to be reimbursed for the IP they bought in 1992.

As for it going from a small fraction of the total $61 millions 23 years ago to being “up to $51 million” or more for the IP alone – yes, that seems wildly inflated.

If you wish to avoid their businesses, they also operate facilities at the Grand Canyon NP, Niagara Falls SP, the Kennedy Space Center, a number of race tracks and a few casinos around the country.

National Parks Concessionaire Backstory

The real issue is the lack of funding by Congress.

The Parks have no choice but to have the concessionaires build and maintain infrastructure, with that obligation to be “purchased” from the outgoing concessionaire by the incoming concessionaire, including trademarked names.

More on this story…

Delaware North, the company that has done a mediocre job running the concessions at Yosemite Park has now lost the contract to a competitor, and has now announced that it is asking to be compensated for the loss of the equity it has created in the brands names of Yosemite–such names as  Wawona Hotel, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, Badger Pass Ski Area, Curry Village and the Ahwahnee Hotel. (This list updated for increased accuracy–you can’t be too careful with these SOBs!)

And isn’t it convenient that they don’t have names…they are just the impersonal corporate entity Delaware North?  So just in case you were wondering, here is a link to their “executives” webpage.  Yep.  All those smiling faces are the ones who made the decision to force you, the American People, to buy back the names of the treasured icons of your national parks.  At a huge profit for them.  http://www.delawarenorth.com/about/senior-management

y the way, the photo on this page shows an anonymous individual holding his arm up, welcoming the money that he expects to be falling from the sky as a result of this bloodsucking scheme.  The NPS has decided to rename those facilities, rather than pay ransom for them to Delaware North.  It makes you proud to be an American and part of the system that gave birth to Delaware North.

By the way, if you’d like to do so, you can do a web search for Delaware North to find their corporate email address so that you can send them a note to tell them exactly what you think of them.  We did that. You can also get a list of the other concessions that Delaware North runs, so that you can boycott them or make their lives less pleasant. We’ve done that, too. Here’s a link to the whole sad story: http://news.yahoo.com/yosemite-park-landmarks-names-amid-trademark-tussle-070827436.html;_ylt=AwrSbnSWbppWfOAAoIJXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw–

When they are going around trademarking pre-existing public government-owned facilities such as “Yellowstone National Park” they are clearly corporate sociopaths.  This isn’t an intellectual property issue, Dave, it’s a greed issue, about wanting money for free and blackmailing the actual owners of these names.  Us.

You can find a list of all of their concessions here, on their own web page.  Of note, they work in SEKI, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon.  They also have restaurants in many airports in the country, and a gawdawful lot of properties in Los Angeles.  I fly out of DIA a lot so I know three restaurants there that will never get a penny from me again.  I’m probably hitting Yellowstone this summer and since they run the General Stores there, again, not a penny.  I’ll go hungry first.

Also on their web page is a Contact page.  Send them a message.