The price to party The Winnipeg Jets Whiteout street parties cost more than $2 million — and taxpayers will foot roughly half the bill By: Aldo Santin Posted: 6:23 PM CDT Monday, Jun. 4, 2018

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City taxpayers are on the hook for about half the bill to host the nine Whiteout street parties during the Winnipeg Jets’ recent NHL playoff run.

True North Sports and Entertainment Ltd. and City of Winnipeg officials told reporters Monday the two groups have essentially split the $2.167 million cost of the outdoor events.

True North (owner of the Jets and Bell MTS Place) paid $1,084,900, including $931,900 for production costs and a $153,00 payment to city hall to offset policing and Winnipeg Transit costs. It kept all revenue from event beer and food sales.

The taxpayers’ share is $1.082 million, with civic departments, mostly police and Transit, absorbing $962,000.

Economic Development Winnipeg paid another $120,000 — money coming from Mayor Brian Bowman’s office expense fund.

Kevin Donnelly, True North senior vice-president of venues and entertainment, said the team was able to lower its total cost to about $600,000 by selling beer, food and sponsorships. He said the decision was made at the start of the post-season the team would get to keep all the revenue, but the costs would be split with city hall.

“In most common occurrences where there is a gathering outside an arena, the team isn’t involved at all, and the team doesn’t pay anything," Donnelly said during a news conference in the atrium at Bell MTS Place.

“True North wasn’t interested in putting on something that took on 100 per cent of the expenses on the premise that it was a free-admission event. There’s no way to break even, there’s no way to achieve any kind of reasonable return. So the discussion was: we want to keep it free, we want to share responsibility for the organization, share responsibility for the costs and just divide the expenses in way that we felt was equitable and manageable between all the parties.”

Michael Jack, Winnipeg chief corporate services officer, said the city realized it was going to incur costs during the playoffs, adding if the outdoor events weren’t organized, they might be spontaneously generated by exuberant fans.

"We had a team that was headed towards the playoffs. We knew that no matter what, this was going to be an exciting time in the city and an exciting time downtown," Jack said. "We were going to have to resource this regardless. We were going to have to provide Transit resources regardless, for whatever celebrations occurred, whether it was an organized one… or spontaneous ones all over the downtown.

"That’s why, from Day 1, we treated this as a partnership."

Jack said going in, the city didn’t know how much it was going to cost — adding it depended on the team’s success — but the objective was to ensure all the street parties were well-managed. He said financial arrangements for any future events will have to be worked out.

"We’re going to have discussions with our elected officials, we’re going to debrief," Jack said. "We have kept everyone in the loop, in terms of the costs as they accumulated. I believe there was general support at city hall for what happened, for all the enthusiasm, for the parties, but we’re going to have to have that discussion."

The Winnipeg Police Service said last week it cost $788,000 in overtime for officers to man the street parties. Jack said it cost Transit about $150,000.

Jack said he doesn’t know how police and Transit will cover the costs they incurred, adding if it can’t be done, council may have to provide them with additional funds.

"Everything is on the table in terms of handling this within acceptable finance principles," he said. "I can’t give you any specifics on each of those departments, but they’re each being asked to look within their own department budgets to see how they may be able to handle this."

Jack said it’s likely there will be more street parties next NHL post-season, adding all civic departments have been warned to make provisions within their budgets for costs similar to this year.

"Certainly, departments now know, with a team that is achieving this well, that there is a realistic chance that we’d be going through this next year. So departments are being expected to look at that in terms of what they request from city council in the next year’s budget."

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which is usually critical of questionable spending by city hall, said it supported the decision to cost-share the expense of the Whiteout parties — and had no objection to True North keeping all revenue from beer and food sales.

"The fact that there’s a big bill for a big party is not shocking at all,” said Todd MacKay, CTF’s Prairie director. “And it’s good that the city and the Jets are working together to foot the bill.”

While True North, Economic Development Winnipeg and the city were working out who pays for what “on the fly,” MacKay said the organizations should come up with a comprehensive plan ahead of time, should the Jets make another playoff run.

“At the end of the day, the Jets going deep into the playoffs is good for Winnipeg and it’s good for taxpayers,” he added. “You have to take the good along with the bad.”

Coun. Jeff Browaty said while everyone united behind the NHL team, it would be unacceptable to cut civic services to pay for street parties.

"This year’s playoff run united Winnipeggers unlike anything I’ve ever seen during my life. As a one-off, I accept the last-minute plans that were made and the city absorbing some costs to help stage these parties," said Browaty (North Kildonan). "Expecting our departments to make decisions like reducing bus frequency, extending the time between park mowing cycles, or increasing property taxes for future parties, however, is not acceptable."

— with files from Ben Waldman

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca