Blue Tooth Closing for Good??

[jmon]

This is one of the most asinine moves I have yet seen in the MRV. Sounds like a tradeoff between the town and SV, SV rids itself of the fact it has no clue how to run a business/nightclub and the town gets affordable housing...EXCEPT you are now eliminating one of the few venues left in the area for entertainment. AND THUS quite possibly eliminating an entire concept called NIGHTLIFE,i.e. the SKIING EXPERIENCE does not end when you take your boots off!

Affordable Housing on the Access road!! Cmon, pleeeaaasse. I for one have had it with the MRV, and SugarBush management. the COMMUNITY needs to realize that the SB mountain and access road/restraunts/village are symbiotic. Eliminating nightlife options in an already lacking environ, hurts the community and the mountain-at least in a demographic of say 20-late 30's-ealry 40's. Just about tears it for me.

So how many business have gone under recently? Hmmm..anyone making any connections?

You know, I have personally recruited dozens of folks from Ktown and ASC, running a ski house year after year in the SB vicinity, but this will be the last. How easy to reverse, can you say 350-800 passes (depending on number of blackouts) Or Jay for that matter-no nighltlife, but more snow!

Let me see here-ranting so might as well continue--

1)Poor marketing by SV, aka PPPP-Piss Poor Pass Program

Badly planned pass programs aka corporate passes too low, regular passes to high, and compounded by favoritism in the management for picking corp groups to approve for passes. Your competition is kicking your backside. Your competition rewards the loyal skier/rider whom retuns...SV punishes you. Kiss my Boston (via cape cod) arse Adam.

2) Options

Jay Peak has no nightlife and more snow and is 3.5 hours from Boston
Killington 2.5 hours from Boston, nightlife/restraunts abundant, superior pass program, NY crowds.
Stowe if ya got the ching.

Yes, the MRV has appeal-but it aint cheap anymore, neither RE-renting houses and buying houses, nor tickets, and what do you get in return? comparitively to other mountains...t

4)5 groomers to 4

In spite of this, kudos to ops crews, really.


5)Bush mismanages the Tooth due to PURE INCOMPETENCE

Nighlife falls off cliff this season. Nice work firing Jean last year, real nice. did a bang up job this season...CLOWNS.

6) Overly aggresive DUI enforcement

Okay. So not a bad thing. But how about a biz response and shuttles ala Killington? Build a safer fun nightlife. The Mad Bus barely cuts it.



I'll vote with my feet, after 7 years at SB, time to move on. Jay or Killington. And my friends whom own houses at the Bush, they lament the lack of nightlife and have no response as to why-i'll tell you-both the MRV in general and SV clearly do not want nightlife. Time to have kids, giddy up.


Nice work Win and Adam and MRV.

-Josh

PS-thanks for rejecting my pass group, making me wake up, explore other mountians, and realize how pathetic the nightlife is at SB, so thanks Adam for turning down 20-30K in Sept. Did you notice the 200+ comp tickets with no restrictions for radio advertising I sourced hitting uot ticket window? Another great business move. why did I try to do the right thing in August,sigh.

PPS-Thanks as well for running the BT into the ground SV. brilliant!

PPPS-Thanks MRV town for desiring to locate affordable housing on the access road. brilliant!

[Schusseur]

Josh - I feel your pain. I too am seriously thinking about changing to another venue. This year in particular was brutal. I won't blame the team for lousy weather, but honestly, I'm trying to remember which weekends this season I was able to use the lifts as intended. They were practically always down for one reason or another.

You know, a little more communication would go a long way. How about just coming clean? Be honest. How about some down-to-earth regular updates on how things are going from Win? How about a big bash to celebrate the season that wasn't?. How about some humor? I know I'm just down right depressed about it. Come on Summit Ventures, don't be thin-skinned. The going's getting tough, so get up and do some schtick. Don't take things so seriously. Yeah I know, selling condos for $700k kind of contradicts that.

I ride up the lifts with all kinds of customers, every ski day. I'm amazed at how quickly and how in such an opinionated way perfect strangers exchange their gripes. It goes from pass holders to day trippers, the feeling just isn't good. This needs to change. What's bugging a lot of folks is the attitude. The "every one just stay calm, there's nothing to see" pitch is wearing thin.

Personally, I'm pretty unhappy about the Blue Tooth. I think it's just another step in the wrong direction, but c'est la vie. Am seriously thinking of putting the condo up sale and moving on. maybe I won't, but I'm now more than uneasy.

[Lostone]

For years, it had been a constant joke of mine that one of the signs of spring was that the Blue Tooth was for sale, and that one of the signs of fall was it was off the market. This was when the same person owned it for years.

If he was unable to make it go as a viable business, why do you think Sugarbush is stupid for not being able to keep it alive? In fact, the problem with keeping a place like that going is that not enough people go there and spend enough money regularly to make it a worthwhile business.

And which do you think Summit Ventures should concentrate their resources on? Should it be running a ski resort or a bar? If the info in the above posts is accurate, they’ve made their decision.

You may think having a place for entertainment is more valuable than affordable housing, but the real community ( That would be the people that actually live around here? ) has been decrying the lack of affordable housing for years.

Is the access road the best place for it? Probably not, but it has a quality I call thereness. That means it is available. That trumps all the places which would be a better location, but are not available. For the record, there are a couple of Habitat For Humanity built houses on the access road.

[castlerock]

Hey Josh, what happened with that corporate pass?

And as for the Bluetooth. They did serve garbage for food. I went there once with the family last year and we swore we wouldn't go back again. (My 9 and 7 year olds were the most adamant!) I can't count the number of times I said, "this place would be great if......"

[jmon]

Righto-the Tooth was terrible food. And badly run for years. But the venue and location had promise. Occasionaly was a rocking good time.I and other friends, personally offererd Win/Adam to help them book bands, sounds/DJ, an iPod night,etc. Anyhting to make it successful. Clearly their lack of wanting any help and stocking with inept tenders and managers makes sense now.

Losing any venue in the area, especially one with a stage setup -that was very conducive to seeing bands - is a bad thing.

I was at the Smokehouse last Saturday, great band, crowd just about empty...proving my point...MRV is not a destination without snow. Other areas are. WHY? Maybe this is not what folks want in the MRV, and that is fine too. But is that the case? Or just a bumbling series of missteps bewteen SV and the MRV community?

the sheriff and police are paid for by your taxes, ask them why the enforcement is so out of proportion in MRV compared to other areas? How about a busines response to alleviate? This requires places to go though. Note this is well past the feud between MMT and LE.

I never said Affordable housing was a bad idea, just a ludicrous concept to place it on the Access Road! Please, take off the rose colored glassed. Name any other VT mounntain that has done so? Or any mountain for that matter. Placing AH in pirme real estate, bizzaro. And frankly I shall take it further-placing AH in a clustered group is a generally failed 1960's idea as well. Integrate AH into developments, require a pecentage for development. Clustering can work, but has much higher chances for bad consequences (can you think of cheap heroin on the access road). How about some urban planning or master planning folks?

Sell the Tooth to someone else, get the land elsewhere, build smaller houses for AH versus condos. Encourage business, vistiors, more jobs, better wages: that helps folks out more than AH in the long run.

The overall feeeling among folks,both locals and long time visitors like myself, is not a good feeling about the direction of the MRV and SV. Any attempt to address issues with Adam is rebuffed rudely. At east Win is receptive and communicative. Ineffective yet polite.

I do think the ops folks did a fine job this year, in spite of electrical issues, wind isues, lack of snow, and losing 20% of grooming capacity.

My groups corp pass got spurned by Adam, fine, I thought the program was poorly conceived and under priced frankly. So I theoreticfally sourced my usual radio station tickets (35 clams) out of NYC for my friends. I tried to give the mountain serious ching in Sept. Other groups also got rejected, but then accepted when they talked with Win. I made the mistake of peeing on Adam.

I personally know the gal whom owns the marketing company for ASC, and look what a bang up job they do marketing, the pass porograms,etc. Go down south 1 hour, and see the diffs. go to Stowe. The MRV is heading the wrong direction on many fronts, and I am done. Made my peace. Attempted to work with SV.

Sigh, too much bitter feelings here, since it could be so different, and 2-3 years ago it felt that way. My demographic spends money freely, we do not stay in, nor wish to.

Do i want to go to killington, rub elbows with NY'ers whom smoke cigs in the liftie lines? no but a 400 pass, and options for food and nightlife are now outweighing the MRV. I'll return, a few times a year to ride/ski, and then hightail it out of the area and spend my ching a ling elsewhere. and i will do this with 35 tickets .

Any yeah-theoretically-reselling these tickets is not right, not by the radio station, nor theroretially by me,but you know what - I did try to give the mountain money in August.

Funny-ran into a girl food shopping today in Charlestownb/Boston-and guess what topic came up???


-Josh

[Treeskier]

I know that officer friendly has really put a damper on night clubbing. I remember an owner dancing up a storm on a rare occasion. I also understand Win's statement at the chamber of commerce meeting that Sugarbush is getting out of the night club business. But it truly saddens me to see one more night club close in the valley. Gallahager was most recent....now the Blue Tooth and the Hydeaway is up for sale. I have two concerns. 1st a selfish one of loving to dance. 2nd by eliminating all of the 20 something and singles joints are we not building a void of up coming patrons and future skiers, condo buyers, family pass holders? An example: My sons Boy Scout Troop had 3 years when we got no Webelows (cubs scouts crossing over to Boy Scouts) our number dwindled to a scary low. Only a large re-push for new scouts did we finally get a new influx of scouts but they are now loosing all of there mentors to college and no middle scouts to teach them. This comparison is what scares me about the future. Everything going on now around the valley is great for my age baby boomers and up but we are doing nothing for the young people. (College pass excluded) I hope that you re-consider your Blue Tooth decision or come up with a alternative up on the MT where at least all of the condo people can walk home. The Phoenix just does not work very well, too small and not band/dance user friendly, too vertical not enough horizontal. Remember all of your strong competition have lots of night life...Stowe, Killington....

It maybe that Mad River Valley needs to start to think about a Stowe solution. Have it's own tourist friendly police force and stop using revenue enhancing Sheriffs.


Managment responce:
I am sad to see the Tooth go. The building would require a tremendous amount of capital to keep it going and the ROI is just not there. I do hope that we can find some entrepreneurs that might reclaim the backroom or make the Phoenix a better spot. In the new gatehouse lodge we are going to have a new Castle Rock Pub. I do not think it will be a very late night pub because of the residences next door, but it can serve as a good après ski from 4-8 or so. It might also be possible to convert the new Round barn restaurant into a disco-like place after dinner in the winter time.

I hope that they or some enterprizing sole comes up with a good night life MT side establishment before next season. That condo people can walk to, good parking and good food and dance. And lots of elbow room

[skibum1321]

While I don't ever want the Valley to turn into Stowe, what we need is a place like the Rusty Nail or the Shed. The Valley doesn't seem to have a real apres-ski gathering spot. Even when the Tooth was there, it never did all that well and was never really rockin.

There are many things working against the younger crowd at the Bush. As a young 20-something, I couldn't afford a pass to the Bush this year so I was at Smuggs this year. I'm sorry but right out of college I don't have the disposable income to drop $1000 on a pass. An affordable young adult pass would be a great idea as a sort of transition from the college pass. Stowe does it, as do many others (or others such as Smuggs are just straight up cheaper - I paid half the price to ski there). And honestly, looking back, I am glad I went to Smuggs this year, as I feel the skiing there was consistently better there. Also, there is the no nightlife thing. I stay in Burlington so it's not an issue for me now, but I would love to have a house in the Valley someday and it may become an issue for me then. I just feel that as a young adult, there are other areas that are trying much harder than the Bush.

[jmon]

Glad this has fostered discussion, I do not want to be taken as being overly negative-I just enjoyed my 7 years in MRV, and am deeply saddened at the way things are going.

Clearly the mountain has no clue as to run a nightclub, so doubting in the future this will change much.

The MRV community and SV need to tackle these issues, together. So far things are slidng backwards fast, sigh.

Someone should vote the Sheriff out, and perhaps business' helping fund a shuttle ala wobbly/pickly help out the bad call for driving impaired. However, not enough nightlife business exists for the need, so a downward spiral has started as to apres and nightlife.

The Bush is pricey compared to the competition or on par bascially, and offers no options for nightlife, and less in last 2 years than ever. My multiple friends whom own houses in MRV are miserable in spite of their blinding love for MRV. We are 30 something crowd from boston, and number about 100-200 folks I know of pesonally, not inlcuing many more extended circles of folks. And many are leaving. Will they return later? Dunno, if I ever buy VT property, clearly other areas offer better ROI. nightlife. cheaper pass progams.

Sigh.

Just seems SV is not seeing the bigger picture, and MRV community is in some kind of bizzare rose colored viewpoint. So here we are.

-Josh

[WWF-VT]

Clearly the mountain has no clue as to run a nightclub, so doubting in the future this will change much.

My multiple friends whom own houses in MRV are miserable in spite of their blinding love for MRV. We are 30 something crowd from boston, and number about 100-200 folks I know of pesonally, not inlcuing many more extended circles of folks. And many are leaving. Will they return later? Dunno, if I ever buy VT property, clearly other areas offer better ROI. nightlife. cheaper pass progams.

My two cents....lots of people come to the MRV for the skiing, atmosphere and the low-key nightlife and are not looking for a Killington Access road party time. I don't think Summit Ventures should feel obligated to run an off mountain nightclub. What do your 100-200 friends do on a Saturday night? If they went out regularly ( with designated drivers) then the economics would be more favorable to bars / nightclubs.

[Tin Woodsman]

My two cents....lots of people come to the MRV for the skiing, atmosphere and the low-key nightlife and are not looking for a Killington Access road party time. I don't think Summit Ventures should feel obligated to run an off mountain nightclub. What do your 100-200 friends do on a Saturday night? If they went out regularly ( with designated drivers) then the economics would be more favorable to bars / nightclubs.

The thing is, there is a HUGE gap between the MRV and Killington. It's not an either or thing - there are many shades of grey in between. Upon the demise of the Tooth, there won't be any places like the Matterhorn, the Shed or the Rusty Nail where people can be expected to gather from 4 PM until late night. That's a real, meaningful gap in the MRV value proposition for 20 and 30 somethings. The alternative isn't K-Mart Access Rd madness, but surely something can be worked out as a middle ground solution.

I've said this before about the negatives of the MRV - there's no "there" there. The mountain would be well advised, IMHO, to ensure that their Round Barn space (or something else at the base) is converted into a late night destination of sorts. Otherwise, the nightlife in the Valley will continue to decline from an already absurdly low base.

[Treehugger]

Affordable housing would be a wonderful thing.

Can you explain what you mean by this? Affordable Housing at the Tooth? What is your definition?

I think it means taking the lot that the Tooth is on and building some affordable housing on it. The Blue Tooth building itself would be history.

I think the question is what price range is defined as affordable?

[Treehugger]

Affordable housing would be a wonderful thing.

Can you explain what you mean by this? Affordable Housing at the Tooth? What is your definition?

I think it means taking the lot that the Tooth is on and building some affordable housing on it. The Blue Tooth building itself would be history.

I think the question is what price range is defined as affordable?

SV bought the tooth as a real estate investment. They never cared about the business. The crappy food can be traced directly to the F&B product on the mountain.

Yeah, the night life is pretty dismal in the valley, but the Tooth has been dead for years. The Smokehouse has had good bands every saturday, sometimes with big crowds.I just got home from there. Great band and good crowd tonight Good to see them bringing the place back. The purple moon tries, but that really isn't a club scene. The Pheonix pretty much sucks, even when they do get a crowd. This year isn't the one to judge crowds by, obviously. The business community knows things arent good in MRV, but people are hooked on the area, so they try to make it work. Off season business is what would keep more places proftable, but that isn't happening in the valley either.

[Insider]

An invitation from Win:

I read with a great deal of interest the comments about the Blue Tooth and the other related discussions – especially from JMON. Rather than respond to these very uninformed and naïve comments, I would like to invite all participants of skimrv.com to share a beer with me next Saturday, March 25th in the Mushroom at 4pm. I will be happy to discuss any and all topics will you, listen to your opinions and give you mine as well. You can RSVP to me at wsmith@sugarbush.com or just show up.

Hope to see you there,
Win

[Treeskier]

Will do my best to be there! Thanks for listening!