Halifax Threatening To Withhold Services For METALLICA Concert

June 27, 2011

According to TheChronicleHerald.ca, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is threatening to deny municipal services for METALLICA's July 14 concert on the Garrison Grounds unless promoter Harold MacKay repays approximately CAD $360,000 to the city.

In a letter dated June 15, Jerry Blackwood, the revenue manager for Halifax Regional Municipality, tells promoter Michelle MacKay who heads MacKay Entertainment Inc. and is married to Harold MacKay that the municipality has been trying to recoup the remaining money from the CAD $400,000 advanced to Harold MacKay last summer because of poor advance ticket sales for the BLACK EYED PEAS and ALAN JACKSON shows (only a portion was repaid before the company went insolvent).

Among the city-provided services that the city is threatening to cut are police, fire and even a permit allowing the sale of concessions. That would make it unlikely the concert would go ahead, according to HalifaxNewsNet.

"The MacKay family has asked the municipality to provide services in support of the METALLICA concert," Blackwood wrote in a June 8 letter to MacKay. "The municipality is not obliged to provide the services you have requested. If you and any member of your family wish to continue to do concert business with the municipality, the municipality expects that a payment plan to reimburse the public for concert debts will have to be negotiated."

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