Parks and Recreation asks for snack machines' removal

Gym denizens looking for a treat after a few hours on a treadmill may have to go a little further.

Parks officials are considering remove vending machines from the swimming pool to make space for additional exercise equipment and the hallway outside the community gym to prevent food from working its way into the gym, Parks and Recreation Director Amber Al-Haddad told the department’s advisory committee. Concerns about the availability of space and about the healthiness of the snacks offered drove the decision, Al-Haddad said.

“I totally understand and respect what you guys are trying to do,” she told the machines’ operators at the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting Tuesday night. “I have to look at it from a facilities perspective though, and what can I do to further our goals there? Number one, I need space for a treadmill.”

The community center is currently storing a boxed running treadmill, and wants to make it available for gym members, Al-Haddad later said.

For some gym users, the vending machines might represent a quick – if ill-advised – hit of salt and sugar after an exhausting workout. Parks and Recreation personnel say they’ve also noticed that Wrangell High students sometimes skirt strict regulations governing what can be offered in vending machines at public schools.

However, for Rebecca and Glenn Smith, who own the machines, a change could represent a significant portion of their business. The Smiths said they haven’t restocked the machines after being asked to remove the machine earlier without the opportunity for redress.

“We haven’t put anything in it because when you asked us to move it, we wanted to be respectful,” she said. “We left it in because we wanted to petition” instead of spending extra money to put the machine back in the event of a successful petition.

The Smiths recognize concerns about the healthiness of the food, but said they thought the gym had room for both sweat pants and Skittles. They’ve also tried to include healthier options in the past, Rebecca Smith said.

“We put both options in there,” she said. “The health food is harder to get because it doesn’t have the preservatives in there. It’s more expensive and it has a shorter shelf life, and if nobody’s buying it, we throw it away and that’s an expense to us, too.”

The removal of the snack machines from the swimming pool and community gym represents one more blow to the Smiths vending interests, who’ve had several similar requests made of them at other locations, Rebecca Smith said later. The Stikine Inn has remodeled, removing one of their machines from the lobby. The boat yard asked a previous existing machine to be moved to a much less convenient location. The Tideline Clinic asked them not to replace a machine removed after they relocated to their current location further out Zimovia Highway. The Smiths also face pressure from doubled shipping costs, and in the winter, the gym and pool machines are among the more active machines remaining to them.

“This isn’t the only issue, there’s other issues, but it’s like no, not one more,” she said.

Advisory board committee members said they would examine the lobby and consider the Smith’s request.

In other business, Al-Haddad said a dog-less rule originally adopted for Volunteer Park ball fields, for which signs had been posted at the request of officials from the local Little League organization had been rescinded. A dog owner had spotted the signs and called in to borough officials to complain that the policy had been enacted without formal procedure, Al-Haddad told advisory committee members.

Little League officials had asked for the policy because of large amounts of dog feces and other damage perpetrated by dogs, Al-Haddad said. The committee could consider recommending a canine ban at some point in the future, but the borough assembly must enact it, Al-Haddad said.

The committee also helped prepare a list of capital improvement budget requests for the borough assembly meeting Saturday night, and added a new item at Al-Haddad’s request; funds for an engineering and assessment survey of the current facilities and future facility needs. The borough assembly was scheduled to take up the issue Tuesday night.