Thanks to a new walking map of downtown Salt Lake City, tourists looking for Mexican food during the Olympic Games will have no problem finding a place. Thanks to Olympic brand protection, however, those looking for Cafe Pierpont might as well use the map for a paper airplane.
With only days until the map is scheduled to be mailed with Olympic ticket packages, Salt Lake City Council members are questioning why a detailed map, complete with a listing of every restaurant, bar and tourist attraction in downtown, cannot provide something as simple as an establishment's name.
"I think this map should be as useful as possible," Councilman Roger Thompson said. "It would be nice if it could include just the names of the restaurants."
The answer, Olympic Planner John Sittner said, comes down to protecting Olympic sponsors, such as McDonald's. The map can include only such details as the kind of attraction, the type of food or drinks and the average price.
"(The Salt Lake Organizing Committee) simply took a very hard line that we could not include any restaurant names if we had any of the Olympic elements," Sittner said.
SLOC representatives did not return repeated phone calls Wednesday and Thursday.
The map includes the lighted Olympic rings above the city and other Olympic insignia, although removing those would be easy, Sittner said. However, distancing the map from the Olympic Games so the names of establishments could be included posed a more significant problem: The maps could not be mailed with Olympic ticket packages or distributed at Olympic venues.
"We would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we can't get it to the people who are coming here," Sittner said.
Council members doubted that a simple map would hurt the business of Olympic sponsors. Instead, it would become a valuable tool for the tourists searching for a recommended local business.
"Salt Lake City is the host city, and we should be able to help people who are coming here to find their way around the city," Councilman Keith Christensen said.
At the urging of the council, Mayor Rocky Anderson said that he would talk to SLOC about the map and would also consider removing any Olympic ties from the map.
"This is a good information piece for the city," Anderson said. "We're not advertising people; we're just helping visitors find their way."
E-MAIL: jloftin@desnews.com