“Stop losing money” really says it all, doesn’t it.

Interesting choice to be subsidized with our city tax dollars. If I recall correctly, doesn’t Michigan already have more golf course holes per capita than any other state?

Read the whole NY Times article: “More Americans Are Giving Up Golf”

Here is an excerpt:

“We have to change our mentality,” said Richard Rocchio, a public relations consultant.

“The problem is time,” offered Walter Hurney, a real estate developer. “There just isn’t enough time. Men won’t spend a whole day away from their family anymore.”

William A. Gatz, owner of the Long Island National Golf Club in Riverhead, said the problem was fundamental economics: too much supply, not enough demand.

The problem was not a game of golf. It was the game of golf itself.

Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America has been in a kind of recession. The total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third. The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation.”

The Leopold Bros suggestion is in no way applicable to what Everyday Cook needs from a liquor license. All a wine maker’s license allows you to do is bottle wine from your or someone else’s barrels. But Mary doesn’t make wine, and 99.9% of wineries aren’t going to offer their barrels for someone else to bottle, since it limits their quality control.

Everyday Cook wants to offer wines from around the world for wine classes, a wine tasting room, non-profit fundraisers, supper clubs, and their existing lunches.

It was thoughtful of Todd Leopold to offer the suggestion, but it really doesn’t apply.

Dave

The so called support for Leslie was a sham. The PAC hearing on the license was never advertised. The agenda was not posted before the meeting and the newspaper advertisement just stated the time and location of the PAC meeting, not that there was a public hearing. The only publicity it got was a post I made to Arbor Update after the chair of PAC told me about the hearing. It was clear to anyone listening to the discussion on the PAC vote on the license that it was a done deal from the get go.

I find it quite interesting that the mayor and several council members have spent so much personal effort on getting this liquor license for the golf course when there is no plan on how it will be used to improve either the golf experience or the golf bottom line. I think we have not seen the end of this sleazy story.

When a few Everyday Cook supporters attended the PAC meeting they were told PAC would not discuss whether the license should go to the golf course or Everyday Cook, that would be Council’s decision. The only decision PAC stated was open for discussion was whether alcohol should be served at the golf course. When presented with tales of gloom, and the threatened sale of the golf courses unless alcohol were served, it was hardly surprising that PAC voted in favor of “saving the golf courses”

When the issue returned to Council it was presented as: “PAC recommends the license be given to the golf course” with the implication that PAC discussed and preferred the golf course to Everyday Cook.

there’s a good comment on ann arbor is overrated from the leopold bros folks (who are exiting town for colorado) suggesting that Everyday Wine get a small wine maker’s license from the state and bottle their own wines; the cost is a lot less, and it’s not subject to quite so much in the way of zero-sum games at the city level.

Thanks for the link to the Crowd Sourcing site, too!