NORTH AMERICA : Can’t Find Those ‘Li’l Mountie’ Baby Clothes? Think Banff

The new, entrepreneurial side of the world’s most famous police force is on display here in Banff National Park at Sgt. Preston’s Outpost, the first shop devoted to the sale of merchandise officially licensed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

For decades, manufacturers and advertisers have used the image of the Canadian Mounties to sell products ranging from Barbie dolls to beer, swizzle sticks to sachets. But the RCMP and its constables never have seen a cent in return.

That is beginning to change under a marketing agreement between the Mounties and the Walt Disney Co.

The first RCMP souvenirs officially licensed to carry the Mounties image or logo under a program run by Disney are hitting shelves of gift shops and department stores throughout Canada this summer. They also are being sold through a Japanese-language catalog and in the Canada pavilion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center in Florida.

But none of these retailers quite matches Sgt. Preston’s Outpost, a 460-square-foot store designed, with simulated wood beams and counter, to look like a turn-of-the-century Yukon trading post and stuffed to the ceiling with Mounties memorabilia.

It is the off-duty business of two mounted police officers who hustled to get in early on what they hope will be a bonanza.

The shop opened June 2 and the owners, Cpl. Jim Bradley, 42, and Sgt. Bob Peterson, 49, say sales so far are good. Inquiries from potential franchisees have already arrived from elsewhere in Canada and from the United States.

“It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the quality of the material, plus the Mounties image, would be a hit in a place like Banff,” Bradley said.

Besides the predictable souvenir T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs, coasters and key chains, the store carries an entire line of “Li’l Mountie” baby clothes, RCMP-logo-embossed luggage, polished enamel belt buckles and even police horse blankets.

Bradley said 22 of the 49 manufacturers licensed so far by Disney have products in the store; he said he expects to double the inventory in the next month.

As Bradley noted, they could hardly have found a better location than Banff, a town at the heart of Canada’s most popular national park, which draws more than 4 million visitors a year.

Bradley and Peterson, both veterans of more than 20 years on the force, own the store, and the RCMP earns a royalty on sales of all licensed products.

The RCMP began work on the licensing program two years ago, fed up with the often shoddy and tasteless products hawked using the Mounties image.

It signed up with Disney’s Canadian division last July to recruit merchandisers and administer the program.

At the time, Canadian nationalists howled in protest that a cherished national symbol was being sold out to a U.S. company.

Disney, they fumed, would use the Mounties to promote the company’s newest cartoon or trips to Disneyland.

In fact, the RCMP retains final approval of all licensed products, and Disney is not participating as a manufacturer, said Staff Sgt. Ken MacLean, the RCMP spokesman on the issue.

Under the five-year agreement, the RCMP and Disney split the royalties on a sliding scale, with the Mounties’ cut escalating from 51% to 55%.

The recently formed RCMP Foundation, an affiliated charity, will use the money to fund community policing programs such as drug awareness education and assistance to crime victims.