Avoid Silverton Colorado

Old-Biscuit wrote:


READ the post by 'IDman' and his Daughters remarks who is a business owner in Silverton

Lack of ORVs IN Town is not going to be a revenue looser

ORV crowd is still welcome....just not riding the ORVs IN town
Simple.......

I did, and that's why I said apparently the town doesn't think it will be a poor financial decision.
So the OHVers in campers don't eat out as much and OHvers don't hit the gift shops as much, but they presumably buy orders of magnitude more fuel, gas station hot dogs and cases of PBR, as well as rent other atv's, bounce them off rocks and get them repaired at the Yamaha dealer or rental shops. SO who's income is more important and do the OHVs scare off more "tourists" or will the new law push away more ohv "business?"
I couldn't tell you and likely neither could any of the crowd who complained or those that made the law. But how many forums, FB groups, word of mouth recommendations, etc will be made to NOT take your OHV to Silverton?
It's bad business. Those towns live solely on tourist dollars. End of story. He!!, couple of my buddies used to buy their new SkiDoos somewhere down there because those guys were always starving for business with such a small local customer base and they'd move machines for cheap to keep from floor planning them over the summer just to sell them as year old models the next fall.


What I am certain of, is any (small) town that is effectively reliant on tourism for it's municipal and personal income is woefully ignorant to kiss a gift horse in the mouth and demote or prohibit any of those (legitimate, legal) tourist activities, as they already live a fine line between good years and bad years. Seen it happen before, not necessarily for the same reasons, but the end result is the same.

Remember this is also going to keep the day traffic ohvs away for sure. The ones who pit stop in Silverton and eat, have a beer and spend way too much on gas, to get back over the mountains.

There are so many other options. No lack of "space" in town to dedicate a couple atv routes in and out, that get the ohvers TO the gas station, store and a a couple parking lots off main drag where they can park and only walk a couple blocks into "downtown."
This is standard issue in popular atv areas and extremely liberal, short sited approach that while may be of less consequence than I've portrayed, is not preserving all means of income for the town, AND also will likely serve as precedence or at least spark the idea elsewhere.
The trails in and around Lake City, Silverton and Ouray are about as rich of a heritage as any in the area. My wife remembers Jeeping there 40 years ago as a little girl and I have similar history from slightly more recent years.