City looks to make good with PMC vendors, box holders
Since there may be no fans allowed in the stands at the Memorial Centre when hockey games resume, city councillors are planning to make it up to the arena’s concession operators as well as to long-term holders of private box suites.
The city-owned PMC closed to ticketed events in March as a safety measure in the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. The Peterborough Petes haven’t resumed playing since.
Although there’s a tentative plan for Ontario Hockey League games to start up again that has been twice postponed, there won’t likely be fans allowed in the arena at first.
That will mean no business for concession operators and no way for people who’ve reserved a private box suite over multiple hockey seasons to use their premium seats.
At a committee meeting on Monday, councillors gave preliminary approval to some potential solutions (with final votes coming at a forthcoming council meeting).
Regarding the food-and beverage concessions, city staff recommends giving operator Compass Group Canada Ltd. a break on the commission it was supposed to pay to the city this year. Under an agreement, the city was owed a commission of at least $132,104 between June 2020 and June 2021.
But now councillors are prepared to allow Compass to pay the city 10 per cent of any food and beverage sales they may earn between now and June 7 and then start paying the full commission to the city again once annual sales reach $821,000.
Still, Coun. Keith Riel said he would like to see a “performance audit” for Compass because as a Petes fan he feels the lineups are too long for food.
“Their service — for me as a customer — is lacking on the performance side,” Riel said.
City arena divisions manager Sue Warrington replied that there’s been an “ongoing” effort to make changes such as adding more tills to allow the lineups to move along faster.
Meanwhile the PMC has 24 private box suites, 14 of which are for people who’ve reserved them for use over several years. But those fans may not be able to access their suites at all this hockey season.
Councillors agreed Monday to a staff recommendation to waive fees for these private box suites from Sept. 1, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2021— unless there are some ticketed events later in the year, in which case suite-holders would pay a portion of their fees.
If the fees for the 14 suiteholders end up being waived for the full year, the staff report says it will mean the city loses $162,145 plus HST.