Belleayre Gondola Discussion Thread

D.B. Cooper wrote

snoloco wrote

Belleayre will be the smallest resort in the country to have a gondola at only 170 acres.

There are some pretty good reasons for that.

yeah, like a few million reasons in NYC. I want this to work, but only if it keeps Platty the way it is/was.

IMO it's a common misconception by many that Plattekill has to deal with unfair competition with Belleayre.  Laszlo always complains about it, and the blog post about tax breaks for privately run ski areas seemed to focus a lot of Plattekill.  I don't see Plattekill being negatively affected by Belleayre installing a gondola.  Plattekill currently is benefiting from a strong niche market and has succeeded for years with this.  I don't think any of Plattekill's loyal customers will switch to Belleayre just because they put in a gondola.  Laszlo will complain to no end about it, but it may actually bring him more business if the lodging situation in the area improves due to Belleayre having more off season activities, as well as something for non skiers to do in the winter.

Someday I think you'll understand, sno. Today just isn't that day.

Laszlo has a lot of passion. When you think about it, he'd probably never make it without it. While he may be the most vulnerable to subsidized competition he's not the only one who has been vocal about it. Chip Seaman's at Windham, for one, has spoken out about this repeatedly.

When you consider Laszlo's position, it's important to understand some of the history that has lead to tension. In Tony Lanza's last full year as Belle GM under the DEC he gave away nearly 17,000 lift tickets.  Whether you believe that is ok or not, you'd have to understand how that could create friction. "Let's see I am at Belleayre now with a free ticket, or I can drive 20 more minutes and pay. Hmmm."

The recent NYSB editorial was about financing not tax breaks.  There has been some discussion/lobbying regarding leveling the field with regard to taxes, but it was not part of our proposal.

Business is about more than loyal customers. While I believe that Laz really appreciates the support of the NYSB crazies, we are not the answer to his prayers.  You know better than anyone the importance of Christmas terrain. Laz wants and needs 100% snowmaking. Without any help he will be get there, eventually.

Others hold the same position about a "rising tide helping all boats."  My fingers are crossed, I hope you are right.

What Tony Lanza did is predatory pricing by deliberately pricing below your costs to eliminate competition.  The gondola isn't doing that.  Hunter and Windham have more to lose because Belleayre competes more directly with them.

When Laz bought Plattekill, he knew Belleayre existed and was state run.  Did he expect that they would never eventually update to Hunter and Windham's level?

I believe he bought when DEC ran it which was slowly running it into the ground, given that trajectory one could see he would be less concerned.

Things change in business, it's always a risk that conditions will change.  However, it's got to be vexing when your competitors losses stemming from "predatory pricing" are being covered by your own tax dollars. I put predatory pricing in quotes because the phrase assumes that product is being sold at a loss, not given away for free.  

This issue isn't black and white. Tony Lanza was in a very tough spot as the state was giving him nothing, for years. Tickets were all he had.  He wasn't trying to eliminate anyone. He was trying to survive.

Think about it... the D in ORDA means DEVELOPMENT, the C in DEC means CONSERVATION.  The DEC's mission is to conserve not develop.

So basically giving out free tickets was a last ditch desperation tactic to try and get more skier visits at Belleayre.

We know you are going to take Laszlo's side on pretty much anything.  What I'm saying is that he knew there was a larger state run mountain nearby that could do things that a government entity could and might do.  That is use taxpayer dollars to cover upgrades and any operating losses.  While it would be frustrating to any business owner to have state run competitors using taxpayer dollars, it was his choice to enter that market and he knew what he was up against from the beginning.  In the TR's from this season, it looked like they were doing pretty well this season, and I think Laz did a great job bringing Plattekill back from a near closure to what it is today.

Sno I've "known" you for long enough to understand that nuance is a not your specialty.

There is a huge range of things Laz and I disagree on. I think it's fair to say we disagree on far more than we agree on.  I don't focus on those things. This is one thing where I do see his point of view.

Putting that aside I just gave Lanza's side of the story. And I challenge you to quote anything from our editorial that is not factually accurate, or shows unreasonable bias.

With luck (like 10-12 good snow years in the next 15) Plattekill will get to 100% snowmaking.  What are the odds? I have no idea, but my fingers are crossed.

Harvey, your idea came directly from Laszlo.  Read the first bullet point under "Platekill's Proposal" about 2/3rds of the way down the page.

http://www.saminfo.com/headline-news/7794-12142-694-plattekill-responds-to-the-belleayre-expansion

As I said, we agree on this idea. That piece was first published on NYSkiBlog:

http://nyskiblog.com/plattekill-on-belleayre-mountain-expansion/

What Lanza did could easily be construed as theft of govt property by giving thousands of lift tickets to his buddy that ran a ski shop.  

What Lanza did was wrong and I'm glad ORDA rolled back a lot of the freebees that he gave out.  I don't see the gondola as being an egregious thing like that was.

The publication date on the SAM article is before the date on the NYSB article and Laszlo's statement was originally addressed to them.

ORDA "rolled back" more than "most" of this. The clamped down on it HARD.  Belleayre is extremely tight with comp tickets as a direct result of this.

snoloco wrote

The publication date on the SAM article is before the date on the NYSB article and Laszlo's statement was originally addressed to them.

This isn't accurate. We don't repurpose content on that scale.

This piece of original NYSB content was published in June of 2013 and the response was strong and on the whole positive. It was reprinted in several places including the Daily Star and SAM.

If you can prove otherwise I will sell my house and send you a check for the proceeds.

Harvey wrote

Things change in business, it's always a risk that conditions will change.  However, it's got to be vexing when your competitors losses stemming from "predatory pricing" are being covered by your own tax dollars. I put predatory pricing in quotes because the phrase assumes that product is being sold at a loss, not given away for free.  

This issue isn't black and white. Tony Lanza was in a very tough spot as the state was giving him nothing, for years. Tickets were all he had.  He wasn't trying to eliminate anyone. He was trying to survive.

 

Spot on imo

Harvey wrote

 

Think about it... the D in ORDA means DEVELOPMENT, the C in DEC means CONSERVATION.  The DEC's mission is to conserve not develop.

VERY valid point. And they don't give 2 shits if they turn a profit with all of their "D". Man_0_Man do I want to run that kind of biz.

There were actually four points in Laszlo's proposal.

The first one was interest free state backed loans for ski areas that compete with Belleayre.  While Plattekill might want or need them, Hunter and Windham also compete with Belleayre likely more than Plattekill does, so they would have to be eligible as well.  I don't really think those two need such a thing as they've been steadily investing at a rate faster than Belleayre for years.  They also have many more skier visits and are obviously doing better than Belleayre is when it comes to profitability.

The second one was for NY to agree not to use predatory pricing on lift tickets.  ORDA did away with most if not all of the free tickets they used to give out and their promotions are now more in line with privately run resorts.  I found Belleayre's rates to be similar to Mountain Creek's and the ski area is about the same size when looking at acreage.  The odd thing is that while Belleayre's adult price is more than Plattekill's, their pricing for other age groups is usually less.  I believe that Plattekill's season pass prices are significantly above market.  They charge 639 for an adult if you buy early, and they're only open 3 days a week.  You can get Belleayre only pass for 689 and they're open 7 days a week.  Hunter's Peak Pass costs even less than the Belleayre only pass if you buy early, so they can't blame that one on the state.

Another thing that was mentioned in the proposal is "joint marketing to help bring more skiers to the Catskills".  He is part of two joint marketing promotions and those are I Ski NY and the Freedom Pass.  Unfortunately, I have heard that they have a history of reneging on the conditions of being part of those groups.

I Ski NY is funded by the Gold Pass which I had for two years a while back, and former member Glade Runner has now.  He paid 1400 dollars for it.  Ski areas don't get any money back for accepting them, but it is a condition to being part of I Ski NY to accept it on any public operating days as it is unrestricted with no blackout dates.  Basically, if you are selling lift tickets and letting your own passholders ski, you have to accept it.  Long story short, Plattekill didn't accept the pass on a Powder Daize, GR submitted a complaint to I Ski NY, and got a refund for the ticket price, proving that GR was in the right and Plattekill was supposed to accept it.

The Freedom Pass allows passholders at one to automatically get 3 free tickets at all of the others which are unrestricted with no blackout dates.  It mostly promotes smaller ski areas.  Well on the same day that GR's gold pass was rejected, they didn't accept his friends Freedom Pass either.  Lazslo was PO'd because Mount Bohemia sold passes for 99 dollars on one day and people bought those with no intention of skiing there just to use the freedom pass at other resorts including his.  While he has every right to be upset about that, he also broke the contract and the person who unsuccessfully tried to use the pass was issued a refund.  Was this a misunderstanding of what "unrestricted with no blackouts" means, or was he willfully rejecting the promotions he was required to accept and hoping that nobody reported it?  I don't know 100%, but I feel like it was the latter due to other details about the incident that I know.

The final point was to have a regulatory environment that allows private resorts to complete pretty much equal upgrades as state run ones.  Laz is spot on here, and for this reason, I believe the state has to approve the proposed Hunter expansion or it would be an abuse of power.

One cool thing about being a sole proprietor is you can do whatever the hell you want to

Doesn't matter.  He was supposed to abide by the terms of the contract and decided to breach it.  All the other ski areas would've accepted the gold pass on that day.

Contracts are broken every single day. Again, part of being BOSS --- you can tell peeps to kiss your azz iffin you want to

Would you be ok with spending 1400 dollars on a gold pass that was advertised and sold as being UNRESTRICTED WITH NO BLACKOUT DATES and then get charged for a lift ticket at any resort that was on it?  I'm guessing the answer would be no.

Plattekill either needs to accept the terms of being in I Ski NY and the Freedom Pass, or pull out of them completely.