Verkamp’s Curios has operated on the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for 102 years — even before Arizona became a state.
However, Verkamp’s will close in September, and you can blame a good chunk of that on the federal government, reports the Canadian Press:
The family’s final chapter at the canyon began in 1998, when Congress passed a law that reversed giving preference to established businesses when issuing contracts. A company that had never operated at a given park now could outbid anyone if it had a better proposal – even if the competition had been there for more than a century.
The Verkamps scrambled, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on appraisals, environmental consultants, financial advisers and lawyers – all in an effort to prepare to face off against major corporations that could vie to run the gift shop Verkamp opened in a permanent building on the South Rim in 1906.
When the National Park Service issued the store’s final prospectus last July, the family chose to give in to what they call “bureaucratic process fatigue.”
“There’s just so many hoops to do what you’ve always been doing,” said Susie Verkamp, the 60-year-old granddaughter of John George Verkamp. “It kind of wears you out.”
The Verkamps also said they had trouble finding someone in their family to run the business, also. This has been a longtime problem with old businesses on Route 66 — finding an heir apparent to run the shop if the children and grandchildren don’t want it.
The story goes on to explain why the law was changed:
Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson said the 1998 law shows the public that there is no favouritism in issuing contracts to concessioners.
He acknowledged that not everybody is happy with the law but said small businesses shouldn’t lose sight of their own advantages.
“If I were a big business going up against somebody who had been in business for generations, I don’t know that I would think I had this thing in the bag,” he said. “Incumbency, when you talk about political circles, has a lot of weight.”
I’m not so sure that’s true anymore. When you have countless, longtime mom-and-pop businesses across the country that went broke shortly after a well-connected, corporate behemoth like Wal-Mart came to town, incumbency seems to be a meager advantage, at best.
The law was meant to make things “fairer” in the free market. But that act inadvertently caused the demise of a historic business that will be lost forever.
I don’t call that a fair trade.
(Hat tip: Lynn “Lulu” Bagdon.)