The "Sugarbush Thread"

Shredmonkey254 said:

Hopefully the lack of restaurants will keep people from visiting the valley... that is about the only upside of this that I can think of.

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To late, Ikon passes have been bought, Maybe it should be renamed ZOO VALLEY 🥹

Still trying to figure out what some of the root cause of the worker shortage in ski communties is. Afterall many people, with the help of he pandemic, decided to relocate from their more urban locations to the mountain communities, often saying how much they loved the mountains and the open space, and wanted to become part of the community. Many existing businesses of various sizes, within those mountain communities have made strides to increase wages in an attempt to both retain and add new workers. And now we are seeing almost across the entire country a worker shortage. It's almost like the folks who moved into the communities, wanting to become a part of those communities don't want to REALLY be a part of those communities, or there's way more going on that folks don't really want to talk about concerning how certain programs actual de-incentivise wanting to work over working for a living, or there's just been a serious shift away from the former work ethic that drove this country by a significant enough portion of the population that people don't want to talk about and address. There's probably numerous other factors as well.

Seems like many want to reside in mountain communities, but few want to work in mountain communities, and then that certainly can lead to the once formerly affordable housing for those who want to work in the mountain communities, getting bought up by those just wanting to reside there, and then renovated and added into the short term rental market at prices that would make it often impossible for many of those needed to work in the region to afford, and then often the communities, will then adopt future development policies that make it almost impossible to build new affordable housing in numbers significant enough to help sustain the economic needs of the day to day businesses in the community. It's a really precarious position that not just ski communities, but many communities are in right now, and until many communties get pro-active about this, they're just hindering their ability to stay as a community where the small businesses that are they're supporting not just the visitors on occasions, but the local 365 days a year can thrive and stay open

Is it really that hard to understand? Well off people buy the property in the “vacation” towns and drive property values up, driving the worker bees out. The well off are working remotely and don’t need service jobs. Yes they want to be part of the community by shopping and eating there but not working. Oh they may volunteer but that doesn’t help when service workers are needed.

yeah I mean noone is moving to ski country, buying a 600k+ condo and waiting tables/washing dishes.
if you got money you are up there to ski and recreate not work. I mean, maybe they open a pottery studio or glass blowing or some bullshit organic farm and produce artisinal goats milk but they aren't there to wax skis or make omelets.


Go home to your condo and cook. it's not the end of the world. if you are lucky @cdskier will invite you over for a 7 course meal with wine pairings

drjeff said:

.......or there's way more going on that folks don't really want to talk about concerning how certain programs actual de-incentivise wanting to work over working for a living..........

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Expound on please

I was up at the bush this past weekend- there were literally NO Options for a sit down lunch - other than Rumbles and the Golf Course Pub. We ended up eating all of our meals at home - which quite honestly, I prefer over dealing with short staffed BS. The one time we went out was on the way home on Monday, I ordered 3 sandwiches from Warren store and paid over $50.

Read a report about why teenagers are not working. Only 20% are..lowest since 1948.
They are spending more time...on school.
Guess this is why pizza places are having a hard time...and jersey Mike's subs by me can't find help.
Might sound good but they are missing out on important things you learn while working.
They will enter the work force..never having worked.

NYDB said:

Expound on please

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Sure, and I will try and keep this at a 10,000ft level vs say a 10ft level.

Social welfare/safety net programs ARE good things. Let me be 100% clear with that right off the bat. However the extent to which they have been expanded and the vast amount of services they cover these days, has made it in many cases the only source of "employment" for people, and not just for a short term amount of time, such as if someone is inbetween jobs, but for many working aged folks, a lifetime. They were born to parents who are in the social welfare system, and they will remain themselves as part of the social welfare system for their lives, and one of the key factors is that there is a financial "penalty" for many when they corss over the governmental determined income level from where they are eligible to receive the governmental social welfare benefits to where they are responsible for those same things on their own, and when people cross that income threshold the added costs they will incur often add up to thousands of dollars whereas the change in their incomes often to get them above that line is so often far less than the costs they now have to pay for themselves. I have read some studies that suggest that when someone starts making enough to not qualify for social welfare benefits anymore that the change in their income needed to allow them to live the same lifestyle as before is often in the 10k to 20k a year range depending on the cost of living where they are. That alone creates a situation where someone could work more, but those extra hours would see them making too much to still be eligible for governmental assistance, they may choose to not work more to keep their governmental social welfare assistance. On a basic level, that is what I am refering to.

We can debate all we want about what should or shouldn't be part of a social welfare system, and there will be passionate people on both sides of that debate for sure, but the reality is with how those programs have expanded over the last 50+ years and what they now cover and what they cost a year, we really should be in a situation where poverty and homelessness in this country should be in a better sitaution than it is now.

Kingslug20 said:

Read a report about why teenagers are not working. Only 20% are..lowest since 1948.
They are spending more time...on school.
Guess this is why pizza places are having a hard time...and jersey Mike's subs by me can't find help.
Might sound good but they are missing out on important things you learn while working.
They will enter the work force..never having worked.

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Having gone through the college application and admissions process with my oldest last year and now my youngest this year, the societal stresses that those driven to succeed have placed on them is massive, and to some extent certainly can and has created over scheduled, stressed out teens, and then the corollary to that is for those who just feel overwhelmed by all of the pressure placed on them, often they end up withdrawing from society or venturing into peer groups who may not end up with the best of influences on them in the long run.

At somepoint over the last say 25 years or so, it seems like the concept that being "normal" is 100% OK has been pushed aside by the notion that you have to a be excepetional/different or else you really aren't anything, and that's not a good thing. Guessing that social media has played a bunch into that side of social development of our youth and now young(er) adults

djd66 said:

I was up at the bush this past weekend- there were literally NO Options for a sit down lunch - other than Rumbles and the Golf Course Pub. We ended up eating all of our meals at home - which quite honestly, I prefer over dealing with short staffed BS. The one time we went out was on the way home on Monday, I ordered 3 sandwiches from Warren store and paid over $50.

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Thinking about it...have there ever really been that many sit down lunch options in the valley? The vast majority of places I can think of have always been more dinner-oriented with the exception of the on-mountain (or on golf-course) places plus a very small handful of others.

And while not sit-down, sandwiches from Mehurons to go should not be overlooked. They make some excellent ones at reasonable prices...

Lived in ski towns for years. I have many friends that still do, a lot in the restaurant business as that's where I worked.

Not a single employer I know (in Stowe at least) says the reason they are struggling to find staff is because of lazy people taking advantage of social safety nets. Not one.

It's about the cost of available housing for workers and available, consistent year round income. You used to be able to find a reasonable apartment in Stowe and be able to make enough during peak seasons to carry you through April, May and November when tourism is completely dead. That doesn't exist anymore. In comparison to 25 years ago, Morrisville has higher rents than what I paid in Stowe. So, all of the young people just leave for the cities. Having to drive 30 minutes to work or entertainment defeats the purpose of being a ski bum.

As for lack of youth workers? Again, it's because of transplants pricing out locals. 25 years ago you had lower income families in Stowe who had lived there generations. They all had kids working the local pizza shops and what not.

Almost all of those people have been replaced by wealthy transplants. You think mom and dad are going to make junior get a job to pay for gas money for the Range Rover they drive to school? Lol. No.

Kingslug20 said:

Read a report about why teenagers are not working. Only 20% are..lowest since 1948.
They are spending more time...on school.
Guess this is why pizza places are having a hard time...and jersey Mike's subs by me can't find help.
Might sound good but they are missing out on important things you learn while working.
They will enter the work force..never having worked.

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Both my kids work. My 16 year old son have saved over $10k from working. Personally, some of my best learning experiences were from the jobs I had as a teen.

NYDB said:

yeah I mean noone is moving to ski country, buying a 600k+ condo and waiting tables/washing dishes.
if you got money you are up there to ski and recreate not work. I mean, maybe they open a pottery studio or glass blowing or some bullshit organic farm and produce artisinal goats milk but they aren't there to wax skis or make omelets.


Go home to your condo and cook. it's not the end of the world. if you are lucky @cdskier will invite you over for a 7 course meal with wine pairings

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100% agree with that.

The point I was trying to get at, is what is now a 600K condo, may of been a 200K condo/older house a few years ago, that was a reasonable rental or even ownership option for the full time locals. Given what has happened to the housing market in the appreciation of the value of many properties, and the renovation of many older properties, often with an eye on putting that property into the short term rental market at a much higher price point than it could of been rented/bought for before, that certainly affects the ability to find affordable housing within a reasonable distance of the mountain/town for many locals. Then add in that some of the local planning an zoning boards and even some community members, for various reasons, have chosen to frown upon many proposals to build affordable housing in the community/region, but seem to be OK approving much pricier single family homes/condos in that same area. It's really a vicious circle, and one that may make it very difficlult for future generations with multi generational family ties to that particular area to be able to live there themselves. Don't know what the balance is, but there has to be one or else so many of the mountain communities that we all seem to love may have a very challenging time continuing in the ways that drew us to them in the 1st place

well once all the people who fleed the city get called back to work or else, the dynamic will change once again. At least that's what the CEOs think.

there needs to be affordable housing, but we all know what kind of hoops you have to jump through in VT. Also the affordable housing needs to be more than an old motel converted into J1 housing for the resort.

Restaurant industry just needs to get together and start bribing universities to include working menial jobs as a requirement for admission.

SenorQuesadilla said:

Restaurant industry just needs to get together and start bribing universities to include working menial jobs as a requirement for admission.

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Or rather than taking out huge loans and then expecting loan forgiveness - you actually get a job and pay for it

jimmywilson69 said:

well once all the people who fleed the city get called back to work or else, the dynamic will change once again. At least that's what the CEOs think.

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That might be what short-sighted CEOs think. But I don't ever see us as a society going to back to being in the office for everyone as the norm. And if it wasn't for the long-term expensive office leases some companies are stuck in, they wouldn't be pushing for it either in many cases.

cdskier said:

That might be what short-sighted CEOs think. But I don't ever see us as a society going to back to being in the office for everyone as the norm. And if it wasn't for the long-term expensive office leases some companies are stuck in, they wouldn't be pushing for it either in many cases.

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Depends on the industry. In mine, WFH was a disaster from a productivity and professionalism standpoint. Pleased our president put an end to it. We own our building and could likely sell it if need be. That won't be happening.

deadheadskier said:

Depends on the industry. In mine, WFH was a disaster from a productivity and professionalism standpoint. Pleased our president put an end to it. We own our building and could likely sell it if need be. That won't be happening.

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I think that this is a key thing that some, especially some of the younger workers, don't seem to fully get, that while some industries can certainly run without issues in a WFH modality, there are others, where there is a definte fall off and a times lesser client expetience/services situation, even if the employee really like the WFH situation, that needs to have an in person work experience, and that's where the boss will step in and probably "offend" a few of their younger employees along they way as they are brought back into the office for the overall health of the company and it's customers/clients

And in some cases where the boss thinks there's a big benefit to in-person and a competitor thinks there's a big benefit to WFH, market forces will decide.

Regardless, WFH likely won't drop below 2019 rates - the demand for housing in desirable locations like near ski resorts is going to stay higher than it otherwise would have. Saddleback is actually building employee housing, and I think that if communities don't work out some solutions to their housing supply issues, more resorts will have to follow that example.