No Cookies For You
As we were leaving the Tuesday shutout game against the Kings, there was a family group selling Girl Scout cookies near Gate 4.
During a brief conversation with them we learned they had recently been asked to leave Westgate property by security guys. Coyotes (or arena) staffers noted the exchange and invited the family to sell their Girl Scout cookies on arena property, just “stay on the bricks and you’ll be fine.”
Let Me Out You F&(@ing *&shole
As we were leaving the Thursday horrific loss to the last place Sabres, we could hear car horns honking all the way to where we were parked.
One of those car horns, the most insistent one, was being exercised by the Hyundai Sonata driver in the image to the right. He had kids in the car. He was berating, with his horn and loud profanities, the highly paid abuse loving parking lot attendants.
He, or the registered owner of the car, is a veteran of the US military if his license plate is to be believed. The discipline and respect he must have learned in the military joined his kids in the back seat, at least temporarily.
He was at the head of a long line of cars attempting to exit the free Westgate parking lot at the same time hockey fans were being directed out of the paid parking lot J.
Everybody Unscathed
A few tweets (we left out names for obvious reasons) from witnesses:
Some dude trying to run over the parking attendant. Classy
I saw that! Saying he went to dinner with his kids and dropping the F bomb left and right #doucheoftheday
I saw that jackass too! What a jerk!
Running over the parking attendant is a bit of an exaggeration. We heard from several people that Sonata guy moved up to place his bumper on the back of a parking attendant’s legs. Obviously, that’s way past safe behavior.
The attendant, whom I did see with the back of his legs on the bumper of the Sonata, maintained his cool and didn’t pull Sonata guy out through his window to discuss the issue further.
The situation had significant potential for escalation and there were no police in sight.
The guys with the high visibility vests handled themselves professionally and, eventually, Mr. Sonata was on his way none the worse for wear.
How Did This Happen?
Prior to last night’s game, the exit Mr. Sonata was attempting to use was blocked off in some fashion on game days. There are other exits to that parking lot that were always open, including last night while Mr. Sonata was teaching his children manners.
We hear that Westgate insisted those exits be opened up, citing safety.
We all know it’s not about safety, it’s about some sort of negotiating power. Westgate, under the direct control of Jeff Teetsel, has been digging in their heels with the new regime at Jobing.com arena from day one when he refused to allow firefighters to park their trucks in the Westgate plaza for the BENEFIT scrimmage game on September 18.
The firefighters weren’t even planning to sell Girl Scout cookies.
Nobody Wins In The Long Run
Naysayers gleefully pointed to “less than expected” parking revenue numbers reported for the new Coyotes organization. I won’t analyze that situation here.
Parking revenue paid to Glendale was a decent slice of the projected revenue that would offset the City expenditure for managing the City owned arena.
It was clear from the beginning that free parking at Westgate would impact the parking revenue. It was less clear that the Bidwill’s Cardinals would undercut the Coyotes parking fees to fill up the University of Phoenix (UOP) stadium parking spots on Coyotes game days although constant disputes (training camp, parking garage, etc.) emanating from that side of the road should have been a clue.
I won’t pretend to know what’s going on, if anything, with Westgate parking fee negotiations or why Jeff Teetsel feels inclined to deal with the Cardinals differently than he does with the Coyotes.
The merchants of Westgate will eventually feel a pinch of the unneccesary competition that will surely come from the Coyotes organization with food and drink. It would be self preservation to compete, to do things such as invite food trucks to join the Saturday tailgating festivities, for example.
In the long run, nobody wins. The Bidwills, Teetsel, IceArizona, Glendale and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority need to figure out how to resolve their differences and profit together instead of trying to undercut each other to suck every dime out of the people patronizing events.
Nobody needs to be involved in a ridiculous fracas like last night’s parking idiocy for free or for a fee.
For now? Mr. Teetser, you should reinstitute the blockage of the interfering exits again on game nights and respond to the needs of your patrons for timely and safe exits of your free parking in Westgate lots. If you don’t, you’ll lose customers and make enemies. Had you been there last night, you’d understand.