Plain City is looking at a proposal to bring park and pool concessions in-house.
Village Administrator Nathan Cahall recently reported that in the past a vendor has serviced concessions at the aquatic center. He said that vendor has elected not to renew the agreement.
Linda Granger, park and pool coordinator for the village, said the vendor was a woman who staffed the concessions stand herself. She said the village received “a certain portion of her gross sales.” Granger said that over the last five years, Plain City received between $800 and $1,000 a year, “depending on what type of season the pool had.”
Cahall said when village officials learned the vendor was not coming back, they explored the option of having another vendor.
“Nobody seemed real excited,” Granger said. “There is some perception that concessions are a great money maker, and they are until you have to pay someone.”
She said many organizations are able to staff concession stands with volunteers.
Officials said after exploring options, they believe it is in the best financial interest to handle concessions.
“Right now, what we are doing is doing our due diligence to make sure we aren’t missing something and to make sure this is really what we want to do,” Cahall said. “We hope to have a plan for council to review at the next work session.”
Granger also said that having the village run the concessions will have other advantages. She said in the past if it looked like it would rain, or the vendor didn’t think it would be a good revenue day, the vendor simply would not show up, “and we had no other means to provide food or drinks for people if she decided she didn’t want to come to work.”
Granger said if the village runs the stand, there will be regular hours of operation.
“We certainly hope that by us running the concessions, we can bring some consistency and better customer service,” Granger said.
Cahall said every business runs slightly different and makes its own choices. He said he believes the village could have offerings that make more sense. He used the example of soda. He said the vendor would purchase cans of soda and sell them. He said the village would likely use fountain soda because, “there is a better profit in doing it that way.”
“We feel that taking it in-house and changing some of the offerings, we feel that worst-case scenario we break even, but we feel fairly confident we can make at least a small profit,” Cahall said.
Granger explained that pool concessions are “so weather dependent, it is difficult to predict.”
Granger said while the village is looking at the in-house concessions option, officials have also begun looking for pool employees. She explained that even though the pool does not open until May 25 this year, the village needs to begin looking in the winter because lifeguards need to be certified, a process that can take weeks.
“If they want to be a first-time lifeguard, they need to begin taking those courses now,” Granger said.
The coordinator also said employees at the pool would be getting a raise this year. She said the village will need to pay some employees more because of the increased state minimum wage. She said because of the wage structure, when lower paid employees get a raise, all employees get an increase. She said the move would cost the village, “ roughly $2,000.”