Policy on Free Samples at Convention Center Food Shows Spark Row

A food fight, of sorts, is taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

No one is throwing around hot dogs and hamburgers, but some angry words are being tossed as a result of a new policy that may cost the center some future business.

At issue are food shows. These are convention center exhibitions by restaurant and food-supply groups that not only display their tasty wares but give ample samples away to potential customers.

The rub is, when conventioneers chow down on the freebies, they buy less food from Orden Food Service, the tenant that pays the center about $1.2 million annually to be its exclusive concessionaire. Food sales rank as one of the most profitable ventures in the city-owned convention center.

So last year, Dick Walsh, who has been the center’s general manager for nearly a decade, instituted a new policy that, in order to compensate the center and the concessionaire for lost revenues, placed a surcharge on food shows at the center.

Tradeshow Week, a Los Angeles newsletter that spent months investigating the situation, says the policy will not only cost the center food show business but could also have a “multimillion-dollar” impact on the city from lost convention-delegate revenues at area hotels, restaurants and shops.

Directors from at least two food shows say they won’t return to Los Angeles again until the policy is changed. Nancy King, director of expositions for the National Assn. of Convenience Stores said, “Other people can fight the battle. . . . We will not return to the Los Angeles Convention Center.” And Pat Dolson, group shows director for the International Fancy Food & Confection Show, said the until the group recently came to Los Angeles it had “never had to pay for sampling” in the 31 years it has hosted food shows.

Walsh says surveys show that concessionaire revenues tumble during food shows and that it is only fair that they be asked to “compensate” the center for lost revenues. But he also noted that the policy is not ironclad, and that the center will try to “work out” arrangements with food groups.

Bill Snyder, president of the Anaheim Area Visitors and Convention Bureau, said the Anaheim Convention Center has no food show surcharge policy, and that he knows of no other convention center that does. “When you’re after a trade show . . . you can’t punish them because their product happens to be food,” he said.