Territorial Dispute Flares : Harbor Tour Business Riding Turbulent Seas

The tempest raging along the harbor front at the Embarcadero these days isn’t the kind that kicks up choppy waves big enough to make you seasick.

This storm is strictly business. The ill winds whipping along the Broadway Pier--even during a balmy day like Saturday--are coming from two companies locked in a territorial dispute over the lucrative harbor cruise business. It’s a textbook examples of free enterprise that has prompted one firm to offer free cruises.

The fight had its beginnings two years ago, when Invader Cruises won a lease from the San Diego Unified Port District to offer cruises along Harbor Drive, between the Broadway and B Street piers.

The concrete sidewalk had been the exclusive turf of San Diego Harbor Excursion for nearly six decades. The bosses at Excursion tours had a predictable reaction to invader Invader.

“He was trading on the reputation that was built (by us) over 60 years,” said Ron Dribben, Excursion general manager.

Dribben said he thought the competitor would be operating a one-person ticket booth and offer dinner cruises, where customers pay between $20 and $30 each to board a ship at night to eat and tour the San Diego Bay.

Instead, Invader owners built a 300-foot booth with six windows. They also offered sight-seeing tours during the day.

Dribben and others at Excursion were more than a little miffed, especially because they had only two small ticket kiosks on either side of the company’s blue headquarters building at the end of Broadway. The kiosks together cover an area no more than 90 feet.

In February, Eric Lund, part-owner of Invader, started cutting prices. His company decided to waive the half-price fee for every child accompanied by an adult paying $5.50 for a one-hour or $8 for a two-hour sight-seeing cruise.

And then there was the little matter of promotional tactics.

“The passengers walking by were absolutely hawked,” Dribben said Saturday. “They were brought into the Invader ticket booth to buy tickets from them, as opposed to the Harbor Excursion.

“Last week, there was an incident of this. I have a letter (from a customer) that says the Invader had one of their employees come into or next to a Harbor Excursion ticket booth and try to dissuade the prospective customer for going on the Harbor Excursion and go on the Invader cruise instead.”

Harbor Excursion launched a counteroffensive.

The company decided to take advantage of a provision in their lease that allows them to move their small ticket booths around. One month after Invader started the price war, a forklift carried one of the Harbor Excursion kiosks up the sidewalk and placed it about three feet from a loading gate used by Invader.

Lund said that move upset him. First, the forklift knocked over a fire hydrant, setting off a stream of water that he said “deluged” a boatload of people coming ashore from an Invader dinner cruise.

But the bigger problem was the booth’s proximity to Lund’s business.

“It would be kind of like Sea World putting a ticket booth in front of the San Diego Zoo,” he said.

Lund protested to the Port District, and a month ago both companies received a letter from a port administrator that both companies would be restricted to selling tickets from their larger buildings, and that the ticket kiosks had to go.

Dribben said an attorney for Harbor Excursion is challenging the decision.

Since then, the fight has escalated. Harbor Excursion last week began selling two-for-one adult tickets in honor of their company’s 60th anniversary. The offer ends today, Dribben said.

Lund decided to go one better: Invader is offering free sight-seeing cruises for adults and children until Friday. He said the offer is packing his sight-seeing boats on the weekends to a capacity 1,800 passengers a day.

“I decided I’m not going to get into a price war,” he said about the free rides, which are probably the ultimate weapon in any price war. “I’m going to make this fun for the public . . . and see if I can focus some attention on the situation.”

“Hopefully by this, people will know that that is not our ticket booth,” he said about the competitor’s kiosk still parked outside of his loading gate.

Dribben said the free tours don’t bother him.

“My reaction to that is it certainly is bringing more and more people down to the waterfront,” he said. “It certainly isn’t hurting our business at all. The numbers are showing that it hasn’t hurt our business. Our ridership is up as of this last week, compared to last week.”

Added Lund: “We don’t hate our neighbors at all. We just want a fair shot at the waterfront.”

Meanwhile, the customers aren’t complaining.