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WE COULD NOT HAVE SAID THIS BETTER OURSELVES. San Diego has rejected the new developers of Old Town. Once Bazaar del Mundo was dumped for a more cash lucrative bid, San Diegans made an unspoken decision to boycott.

UPDATE: Latest article from San Diego Union Tribune:

There's a time for all to stand up for something. One of the things we stand up for is supporting local businesses. We do it all the time. But, Bazaar Del Mundo and owner, Diane Powers, deserves all of our support.

We post this article to show that San Diegans have supported Diane Powers with a very loud silence that can not be ignored. The people have spoken. We continue to ask all residents to shop at Bazaar Del Mundo throughout the year, but also remember Bazaar for holiday gifts and special occasion gifts. Eat at Casa Guadalajara next door. Drive to La Mesa for Casa de Pico. Continue to support Diane Powers because for over 30 years she gave this area a wonderful place for families, friends and yes, Margaritas!

Read on for the lastest article from the Union Tribune:

Consuelo Miller owns La Panaderia bakery in Old Town's Plaza del Pasado. The plaza's management invited her to reopen this year, three years after she had been ousted.

Consuelo Miller is back where she started at Old Town State Park's former Bazaar del Mundo, and the irony is not lost on her.

In 2005, Miller lost her bakery shop sublease at the bazaar -- now renamed Plaza del Pasado -- after New York-based Delaware North outbid San Diego businesswoman Diane Powers for the concession contract she had held for 33 years.

Now, three years later, Delaware North has yet to make the park a financial success, and revenue is well below projections. In March, the company invited Miller to reopen her La Panaderia bakery under a new sublease, and it is farming out other shops it had originally taken over.

"It's all come back around," Miller said with a wry laugh. "When Delaware North first came in, they wanted to run all the shops. They didn't want any subleases. But they didn't stop and think whether they'd be as popular and successful as Diane Powers.

"And they were not. They didn't know how to run those darn shops. At my bakery, they didn't know how to make churros."

State records show that revenue at the establishments at Plaza del Pasado is down by almost 66 percent from fiscal year 2005, the last year that Powers ran the park's largest concession, which consists of about a dozen shops and three restaurants.

In fiscal 2008, which ended in June, Delaware booked revenue of $7.53 million, down 18 percent from the $9.2 million in revenue it made in fiscal year 2007.

In contrast, during an 11-month period that ended in May 2005, when the concession was transferred to Delaware North, Powers' Bazaar del Mundo generated $22.23 million in revenue.

Some of Delaware North's revenue woes stem from the temporary closure of crucial properties. Renovations to the Jolly Boy Saloon (the former Rancho el Nopal) and to the still-closed Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Hotel (formerly Casa de Bandini) cost the company an estimated $1.44 million in lost sales last fiscal year, state officials said.

But had the closures not occurred, the estimated $9 million in total revenue is still less than half what Powers regularly generated.

Lance Wellwood, general manager of Plaza del Pasado, declined to say whether the park concession is profitable for his company. But he acknowledged that revenue is well below what Delaware North initially projected.

Wellwood said the lag is linked partly to the ailing economy and partly to the state's mandate for a more historically authentic, if not always crowd-pleasingly colorful, atmosphere.

The park also is recovering from the backlash from Bazaar del Mundo fans who resented that Powers lost the concession, Wellwood said. Two generations of San Diegans grew up on Powers' flashy formula of festive decorations, colorful costumes, margaritas and exotic shop merchandise.

"Our business model is different from Diane Powers' business model, which was built over many years and became a well-oiled machine," Wellwood said. "Our three-year business is still in its infancy, so it is like comparing an adult to an infant."

Delaware North's ultimate success is crucial for scores of businesses in and near the park because many rely on the foot traffic generated by the collection of restaurants and shops at the plaza.

Some Old Town business owners say Delaware North is making steady progress.

"If the economy itself was not down, I think that we'd be close to hitting the same numbers as we did before," said Chuck Catania, owner of Captain Fitch's Mercantile, a separate concession within the park. "Diane Powers is a hard act to follow, but from where Delaware originally started they have made a tremendous uphill climb, and we're starting to see more and more shopping bags coming out of their area."

One of Delaware North's hurdles is the state's mandate to make the park reflect the California of the mid-1800s. To some tastes, that means too much drab wood furniture and adobe, Catania said.

"Powers had a lot of flair and her own style, while Delaware has had to conform to the state requirements," said Catania, vice president of the Old Town Business Improvement District. "It's very tough to conform to a historic venue when you are trying to sell present-day goods. The emphasis is on history, not ambience."

One strategy for rebuilding business is to take a page out of Powers' book. In some areas, Delaware North has stepped back as a hands-on operator and, as Powers did, is subleasing shops to local businesses and artisans.

"We decided to partner through local companies that have great stories and products of their own," Wellwood said. "We're businesspeople. We're going to find the best way for us to be successful, and we realize that a local connection with local businesses is a way to do that."

Several businesses have been added this year under a Delaware North sublease, including La Panaderia bakery; Temecula Olive Oil Co., which offers organic, hand-pressed oil; and Hacienda de Las Rosas Winery & Tasting Room, which offers Spanish-style wines.

By the end of the year, 11 subleased businesses will be in place at the plaza, Wellwood said.

Last year, Delaware North even approached Powers about the possibility of coming back to the park under a sublease. Powers, who relocated her Bazaar del Mundo shops just outside the park's borders, declined.

Powers also declined to comment on the Delaware North concession, saying, "It's a sensitive subject."

She added: "I'm sure a lot of customers who come here go there, and ones who go there often come over to our stores. But we have different facilities, so you can't really measure and compare them."

In addition to more local shops, Delaware North as tried to put a little of Powers' fabled pizzazz into the park, including free summer concerts and a grape-stomping festival last month at the winery.

Ronilee Clark, superintendent of the parks department's San Diego Coast District, said guest surveys indicate more locals are returning to the park.

And while the business of Old Town State Park is struggling, no one disputes that the California Department of Parks and Recreation emerged a clear winner in the deal.

The park makes more money with Delaware North than it did under the previous contract with Powers, or under terms of the competing proposal that Powers submitted when she vied with the company in 2005 to keep the concession.

To win the bid, Delaware North pledged to spend $12 million on renovations and pay a minimum of $2 million annually or a percentage of its gross income, whichever is greater. For revenue up to $18 million, the company must pay 8.5 percent. If the revenue exceeds $18 million, it must pay 9 percent of all gross receipts.

Under the previous deal with Powers, the state received 7.3 percent of gross monthly receipts, which amounted to about $1.6 million in fiscal 2005. Powers' 2005 proposal offered little more than her previous deal and did not address the park's goal of historical accuracy in any significant way, Clark said.

So Delaware North remains on the hook for at least $2 million each year through its 10-year contract, regardless of whether its operations are profitable. Meanwhile, the company has spent about $6 million of the pledged $12 million to renovate and restore park buildings and the grounds.

The rest is earmarked for the renovation of the Cosmopolitan, which is slated to reopen in 2010, and to expand and reconfigure the courtyard restaurant and shops at the plaza, Clark said.

"We realized what the Bazaar del Mundo had was loved by the public, but the state's long-term goal was to bring this to a place where it felt like a historic park," Clark said. "Delaware went way beyond expectations in their proposal.

"From a capital improvement and financial point of view, the state is much better off. And a lot of visitors appreciate the authentic feel of the park."

Old Town history

GERRY BRAUN | ONLY IN SAN DIEGO
Miss old Old Town? It could be a lot worse.

July 15, 2007-San Diego Union Tribune

It's hard not to feel sorry for Delaware North, the company now in its third year as the concessionaire for restaurants and shops in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.

It was given the unenviable task of slaughtering the cash cow that was Bazaar del Mundo -- where every day was Cinco de Mayo and success was measured by the margarita -- and replacing it with Plaza del Pasado, a historical Old Town reflecting San Diego as it was from 1821 to 1872.

Turning back the clock is hard in a city that's no more inclined to celebrate its past than to plan for its future.

Compounding that problem, historically accurate San Diego was kind of a miserable place. If you built a time machine in your backyard, it wouldn't top your list of destinations.

Or, put another way: There's a reason only 500 people lived in Old Town in the 1820s.

If you wanted water, you had to hike to the San Diego River. There was no greenery aside from the cactus, which was also a major source of nutrition. Most floors were stamped dirt, sprinkled with ox blood to keep down the dust. The ovens were heated by burning cow chips.

I learned these tidbits while taking an interpretative tour of Old Town last week, along with four history teachers from Florida and two Irish girls badly in need of sunscreen.

I wanted to know if Delaware North was truly guilty of sucking all the fun out of Old Town.

I came away convinced that they're doing an admirable job with what they had to work with. Or, put another way: It could be a lot worse.

My interest in Old Town was piqued a few weeks ago when a lawyer named Kristine Wilkes, fresh from a Saturday night there, wrote to say it was "nearly deserted" as well as "sad, drab and listless."

Fondly recalling its days as a flashy fiesta, she accused its new operators of "stripping every bit of charm from the park."

It had been years since I'd been to Old Town State Park (as opposed to the thriving commercial areas, which include shops that carry on the Bazaar del Mundo name) so I arranged to let her show me around.

One of our first stops was the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, formerly Casa de Bandini, where we sat in historically accurate straight-backed chairs under historically accurate canvas tarps held aloft by historically accurate lodge poles.

"It used to have round tables and cute umbrellas and strolling mariachis," Wilkes lamented. "It just doesn't have the energy or the color or any of the excitement it used to."

She even scoffed at the authentic 1850s-style albondigas soup, though I later ordered a bowl while reading an 1868 copy of The San Diego Union. Both were pretty good.

For the next hour, Wilkes proved a delightful companion, if more enamored of cute umbrellas than your average lawyer. Yet nothing Delaware North had done pleased her.

She longed for the colorful flowers, and for the statue of a donkey pulling a cart of Mexican blankets. She missed the waitresses' scooped blouses and flowing skirts, pooh-poohing their period attire as "drab prairie-dog outfits."

Walking near the town square, with its dry-goods store and tobacco shop, she observed, "You expect a fake gunfight to break out."

Spotting an ad for tours of haunted buildings, she quipped, "As I say, they've turned it into a ghost town."

She was on such a roll that I briefly considered letting her write my column for me.

Instead, I returned for one of the daily tours. Our guide took the persona of H.F. Parsons, a dapper midcentury contractor. The history teachers were in heaven.

To see Old Town as it really was, he told us, "You have to use your imagination and take some things out and put some things in. The first thing you have to take out is water."

By his account, ripping out flowers wasn't enough. The town square's lawn and flower-bearing trees were also frauds.

The square, in fact, had been the city dump and sewer -- "which might make you think it was really rancid." But it wasn't, he said. "In the evenings, the bears and wolves would come out of the valleys and clean up."

Delaware North has spared us that spectacle, as well as a reprise of one of our forefathers' favorite amusements.

That would be shackling a bull to a bear and watching the animals fight, usually to their mutual deaths. Gambling was popular, so I imagine folks bet on each fight's outcome.

Given where our society seems headed, reviving that bit of authentic San Diego history might help Plaza del Pasado's revenues, which are down by about 60 percent from when it was Bazaar del Mundo.

Later I studied a scale model of Old Town circa 1872: a bleak, dusty, colorless collection of bleak, dusty, colorless buildings. It's hard to blame Delaware North for that.

The model didn't even include the courtyard buildings that are the heart of Plaza del Pasado and home to the Casa de Reyes (formerly Casa de Pico) cafe. They were built in 1939 as a Mexican-village theme motel.

That could be another missed opportunity. This town might rally around a historically accurate motel. Especially one with beds that vibrate for a quarter.