Turf Business Getting Screwed

“AA” runs a dealership model franchise. We paid $38,000 to own our own dealership under “AA” and have exclusive territory in south LA. A neighboring dealer was found to have conducted business in our exclusive territory multiple times and had an infringement filed and paid us ~$50k in reciprocity last year. “BB” (a playground equipment company) claims to exclusively use the other dealer even when installing in our territory. We were notified of a local school looking for turf. We installed AA turf at the contractor’s personal residence. The principal of the school wants to use our delearship for the installation. BB is refusing to void the contract stating they subcontracted the other dealer and won’t switch the job to us. We are owed reciprocity for this infringement. It’s 9000sqft. General dealership guidelines state to ask for 15% of the price of the turf. BB marked up the turf over $13,000 than we would have priced it. We would have profited close to 8,000. We have the right to not approve a turf order from a neighboring dealership. If we decline to approve it, home office has basically said we are expendable and they can terminate us if we do not approve this order. The owners/home office of AA are essentially saying that we need to roll over on this project (once again) since BB is a large playground installer who brings in so much revenue. Apparently this is an ongoing problem with playgrounds. What recourse do we have? We don’t get the job no matter what we do. I reached out to owner of BB to explain that we are a small husband/wife owner with 3 small kids. Not being allowed to bid on jobs because she wants to stay with a neighboring dealer after we’ve paid for exclusive territory is hurting us and she basically laughed in my face.

Location: South LA