Many unhappy with service at BC Place re-opening

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The line-ups were too long, the toilets overflowed and some of the concessions ran out of food and beer.  News1130 was flooded with complaints from angry BC Lions fans who were not impressed with the grand re-opening of BC Place.

“My customer service representative definitely dropped the ball all over the place,” says Justin.

He was sitting in the club seat area and says the men’s washroom near him didn’t have the water turned on for a while and there was no cleaning staff.

“When you would tell somebody they would try and go look at it, but it seemed they were putting out fires as opposed to dealing with it properly the first time.”

Sarah tells us she missed the entire 1st quarter because she was stuck in a concession line-up and when she reached the front she was told they were sold out of food and beer.

“They keep pushing this new BC Place as the best new stadium in Canada, but how can we even consider ourselves the best when you couldn’t serve 50,000 people food last night.”

Sarah adds she won’t return until staff there is better prepared to handle a large crowd.  “They probably will increase the number of patrons coming to the game but if they can’t get the operations ready for that number of people then it’s not worth it.”

BC Place GM Howard Crosley admits to News1130 they were short on staff and says not all employees were properly trained.  He also adds some of the food wasn’t delivered on time ahead of the game.

“Some people didn’t know how the beer systems worked properly and we were having some difficulties with that.  For a start-up, it was a little bit of a difficult situation and the fact that two-thirds of our staff was new.  It’s a tough learning curve in a new live environment and we will be better tomorrow.”

He also points out that workers have only been in the building for a couple of weeks for training because construction hadn’t been completed yet.  Crosley says they’re not trying to make excuses but they will do a better job at future events.

The Vancouver Whitecaps host the Portland Timbers Sunday at 1:30 p.m.