At the October 10 meeting of Branson’s board of aldermen, Alderman Ron Huff read a statement about the City of Branson’s September 15th letter to the Branson Sports Club demanding that it take the word “Branson” out of its name because the City of Branson allegedly has the legal control of that term. One can only wonder and ponder how “Branson” ever got from its meager beginnings at Marble Cave in the late 1800s to the seven million plus visitors it had in 2005 without the City of Branson.
But not to worry, the City of Branson is here now to take control of the term “Branson.” This, in spite of the fact that the term “Branson” is, and has been, an economic development tool, in the public domain, that has been used by the entire “Branson” area for over 120 years. Is it not “Branson” that has made the City of Branson relevant?
Huff wondered whether or not those concerned about the actions that the City of Branson was taking against the Branson Sports Club would have been as concerned if, instead, the business had been named “Branson Exotic Dancers.” To an Ole Seagull that was an onerous Freudian slip evidencing the value system, he believes, is employed by the majority of the City of Branson’s elected leaders and its highest ranked unelected official.
Let’s not respond to the right or wrong or reality of the actions that the City of Branson took against a local business and the public embarrassment that those actions caused. Instead let’s attack those who dare to question those having the responsibility for what happened. A responsibility that, in the opinion of an Ole Seagull, rests solely with the City of Branson’s elected leadership and their failure to control the actions of the city’s highest ranked unelected official, city administrator Terry Dody and hold him accountable for what happens on “his watch.”
Was it an Ole Seagull or the media that sent the September 15, letter to the Branson Sports Club or was it the City of Branson? A letter that most reasonable people would say appears to be designed and created to give the clear impression that because the City of Branson “owns the federally registered service mark BRANSON, MISSOURI (and design) Reg. No. 2,594,679 for use with municipal services” that it also had the right to prohibit or control the use of the word “Branson.” Incredibly, the words “Branson, Missouri” were specifically disclaimed in very registration cited in the letter.
The letter demanded that the Branson Sports Club formally change the name of their business to delete all references to “Branson.” It accused them, of among other things, deceptive trade practices, trademark infringement and false designation of geographic origin under various cited provisions of the federal “Lanham Act,” merely because the term “Branson” was used in their business name. Some people, an Ole Seagull included, might get the impression that the letter reeks with the stench of attempted intimidation and coercion but then, one person’s stench is another’s perfume.
Speaking of stench, recent news reports indicate that City of Branson officials announced that they were dropping the demand that the Branson Sports Club remove the word “Branson” from its name. The reports indicate that, according to city administrator Terry Dody, the city has recently determined that they had the name registered with the Missouri’s Secretary of State longer than 24 months which is beyond the period the city is going to enforce its alleged right to the term “Branson.”
Please, give an Ole Seagull a break! Can any reasonable person doubt, that prior to sending out the September 15, 2006 letter, that the City of Branson either knew or should have known that the Branson Sports Club Inc. had been in business since April 9, 2003? Isn’t it basic Research 101 stuff? Is there any reason to believe that the city’s research in other areas has been any better? If the answer is “No” what does that bode for the City of Branson’s future?
To an Ole Seagull, it bodes about the same thing as being down wind and close to the tail end of an agitated skunk as it raises its tail, very little good for anyone except, possibly, the skunk. One could wonder if it would be better for the “Branson” that seven million visitors came to visit in 2005 if the “City of Branson” would change its name to the “City of New Branson” and leave “Branson” alone.
