VAIL - Your morning coffee may double in price if the town moves forward with a plan to get rid of delivery trucks on pedestrian streets, said Becky Magoon, co-owner of the Covered Bridge. VAIL - Your morning coffee may double in price if the town moves forward with a plan to get rid of delivery trucks on pedestrian streets, said Becky Magoon, co-owner of the Covered Bridge.
The coffee shop often gets hundreds of pounds of deliveries in a day - and it is a relatively small eatery in Vail, she said.
"We're creating more problems than we're solving," said Kim Mause, the other co-owner.
Where the docks will be
Vail Plaza Hotel and Club: 5 docks
Solaris: 5 docks
One Willow Bridge Road: 1 dock
Front Door: 17 docks
At the direction of the town, developers are building dozens of public loading docks around Vail Village. The docks will be ready soon, and the town is trying to figure out how businesses should use them.
Business owners say using the docks would make their deliveries more costly, more complicated, less safe and less timely.
"Make them go do some of these deliveries," Magoon said of the town officials who moderated a meeting on the subject Tuesday.
The officials told a standing-room-only crowd of business owners, delivery men and residents to expect changes.
"We are doing it," Town Manager Stan Zemler said. "There will be a loading and delivery system that's different than the loading and delivery system today."
The town says trucks are bad because they are unsightly, too big, too loud and unsafe for pedestrians. The town is putting together a "working group" of 13 people that will come up with a plan on how the docks will be used. Its first meeting is supposed to be July 19.
Still, many balked at idea of using the docks.
John Steiert of Shamrock Delivery said his company brings two or three trucks with 40,000 pounds of goods on each truck into the village six days a week. One delivery man is on each truck.
"If a truck had to park at a central location you'd probably have to put three or four delivery people in the truck," he said. "There would be some type of surcharge (for businesses that get deliveries)."
Paul Treacy of Kidsport wondered why, with millions of dollars in public facilities opening, there wasn't already a plan on how they would be used.
Susan Fritz, owner of Sapphire restaurant, said the docks should complement the current system, not replace it.
Now, trucks can be on pedestrians streets during some parts of the morning.
"I'm afraid they are going to meeting everyone to death, then implement something that doesn't work," she said.
Robert Aikens, owner of Verbatim Booksellers, said tourists don't complain about delivery trucks.
"They complain about construction and how hard it is to get around," he said.
Staff Writer Edward Stoner can be reached at 748-2929 or estoner@vaildaily.com.
