Yosemite National Park not allowed on merchandise
By Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — The trademark spat that is prompting the National Park Service to change the names of a handful of treasured sites at Yosemite, including the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village, has taken a startling turn — to the park’s gift shops.
Merchandise embossed with the name “Yosemite National Park,” from T-shirts to coffee mugs to pens, will be pulled from store shelves this week because of claims by the park’s outgoing concessionaire that it owns the name for commercial purposes, according to the park’s new operator, Aramark, which is based in Philadelphia.
Aramark officials, who on Tuesday take the reins of Yosemite’s many hotels, restaurants and shops from longtime management company Delaware North, plan to begin selling souvenir items with the name “Yosemite” instead of “Yosemite National Park.”
The more I read about this battle between two losers, Delaware North and The National Park Service, the more I miss Edward Abbey.
Delaware North’s the villain in this piece, no doubt about it. I need a regular Yosemite fix like others need a morning coffee fix – I never let a year go by without a visit to Yosemite. So I remember clearly when Delaware North took over the park concessions and put their own brand of indifferent service, incompetent help and trashy facilities on my cathedral. Naturally I passed my observations on to both Delaware North and NPS and, also naturally, never heard back.
But just as Delaware North trashing an icon is more of a caricature than an example of corporate greed (just as Trump caricatures rather than represents Republican politics), so does the NPS’s appraisal of undefined “intangible assets” as part of Delaware North’s purchase when they took over Park concessions demonstrate how government lawyers and government managers are never hired from the upper half of any university’s graduating class.
The fact that NPS, while claiming to fight back, is simultaneously rolling over on the issue, probably to cut their, and our, eventual losses, shows us what they really think of their chances for a win; their chances to have some court reverse the damage to our property that NPS has incompetently allowed.
When ol’ Ed passed away his friends hid his body at a secret location that remains undisclosed to this day. I would never advocate law breaking, but I wish that Ed’s buddies would check back and see if there might some life left in the ol’ monkey wrencher – the first time I see signs for “The Majestic Yosemite Hotel” or “Half Dome Village” I’m gonna be sorely tempted.