From the Niagara Falls Review:
“When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel what it was: But I was in a manner stunned, and unable to comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was not until I came on Table Rock, and looked - Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright-green water! - that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.”
- Charles Dickens, “American Notes,” 1842.
Travellers have been awed by the thundering cataracts since Father Louis Hennepin first clapped eyes on what many consider to be one of the world’s natural wonders more than three centuries ago.
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Steve Alek’s registered trademark of the word Fallsview could be undone by a semicolon, says a Niagara Falls woman with 20 years of experience in trademark law.
“If all of these services (listed on his registration) have not been provided since the date claimed, I would question the validity of the registration,” said Pamela Feldman, who spent 20 years as a trademark agent with the Toronto office of global law firm McCarthy Tetrault before retiring in 2005 and moving to Niagara.
According to the trademark registration filed Sept. 20, Alek claimed to have used the word Fallsview for the following services:
“(1) Furnishing of travel information to Canada and Niagara Falls via the Internet and/or travel related website; hotel services; motel services; restaurant services; sightseeing services, mainly guided tour services” since Jan. 17, 1995.
Pamela Feldman said reading that, it appears as though Alek owns or operates at least one hotel, motel, restaurant and guided tour service.
“It’s the semicolon,” she said. “I take that list to read that he actually owns these types of businesses.”
But Alek doesn’t own a hotel, motel, restaurant or tour company.
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Steve Alek knows the words people use to describe him: Cybersquatter. Opportunist. There are others, but libel laws and good taste make it impossible to print them.
For the most part, he says, he couldn’t care less.
“You’ve got to have the mindset doing this, ‘How do (I) want to be perceived,’” Alek said this week from his home in Crystal Beach. “People can think I’m a (jerk), but at the end I’m not that much of a (jerk) really. It’s just business.”
From the Niagara Falls Review:
As we’ve been documenting for the past three days, there are significant challenges facing the tourism industry in Niagara Falls - namely, how to bring more visitors here and how to keep them here longer.
Tourism isn’t, and must not be, a dirty word around Niagara Falls. It’s a major industry in our city. While we lament the loss of manufacturing jobs and try to figure how we can compete with Mexico and China to get them back, the homegrown tourism industry offers a realistic chance for growth.
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