Sports fans may have to dig deep into their pockets to help pay for new seats at Commonwealth. The city is suggesting a ticket tax be added to Eskimos' tickets to help pay for the new seats.
The Edmonton Eskimos organization is dealing with the problem of broken and aging seats at Commonwealth. Since 2005, a thousand seats have busted. Just last year in light of the Grey Cup, 500 seats were fixed.
"I see the abuse the seats go through," said season-ticket holder Mark Judge.
The organization says without a source for parts, the time has come to replace all of them.
"We've got very good value out of these since Commonwealth was built in 1978. And I think if we get the new seats in now, I think we're good for another 30, 35 years," said Rick LeLacheur, president and C.E.O. of the Edmonton Eskimos.
But it comes with a pricetag of $12 million.
"It's a lot of money for seats," LeLacheur said.
LeLacheur went looking for the money from the city, but councillors wondered about options to try and recoup costs. Council asked city administration to look at possibly selling seats.
"We've also asked them to look at a surcharge on tickets as obviously we are asking to on the downtown arena," said City Coun. Tony Caterina.
The mayor thinks adding another dollar or two to ticket prices shouldn't make a big difference.
"Like many things we do in this city, there should be a user pay component to it," said Mayor Stephen Mandel.
And this season ticket holder agrees.
"A buck or two on top of that is still not going to price the tickets crazily or out of the reach of the ordinary person," said Judge.
The matter will go before council on May 18th.
With files from Susan Amerongen
