Skiers wait in line at the Payday lift as Park City Mountain Resort in Park City opens for the 2020-21 ski season on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
PARK CITY, Utah — The list of grievances from some Park City residents against Vail Resorts is long. Gridlocked traffic, ungroomed conditions, long lift lines, crowded trails, non-existent parking. These are the conditions they say locals are facing this winter.
Those Park City locals are now trying to get the attention of Vail Resorts with a petition. They say Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) was not prepared for the onslaught of visitors that should have been predicted by the number of EPIC passes sold this season. A record two million EPIC passes, to be specific.
The new petition wants the Talisker Group to evict Vail Resorts from Canyons Resort.
“I don’t know that it’s ever going to really happen, that we could evict them,” said Nancy Lazenby, with the Responsible Resort Area Development Coalition, “but it’s getting Vail’s attention.
“Right now they’re getting away with murder because there is no consequences, there is no accountability. It’s not good for the city and it’s not good for the state,” Lazenby said.
Vail Resorts purchased PCMR in 2014 after a legal battle between PCMR and Talisker Land Holdings involving a failed lease extension. Then, they combined PCMR with the Canyons Resort by an interconnected gondola and added PCMR to the EPIC pass.
The EPIC pass offers access to dozens of ski resorts, worldwide. There are multiple versions of the EPIC pass, most with holiday restrictions.
And it has created a lot of angry Park City residents and skiers, as well as workers at the resort who say they are not paid enough. As reported by the Park Record, residents recently crowded into a meeting of the Park City Council with their complaints about how the resort is operated. The Park City Council scheduled another meeting to address the issues reported the Park Record.
The petition to evict Vail from PCMR has nearly 1500 signatures so far.