Manager Mike Chioccho and assistant Melanie Lougran received an invoice for $574,041.56 from Peninsula West Utilities. |
Bar billed $575,000.00 for hydro Jordan Hotel stayed open during blackout |
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Manager Mike Chioccho and assistant Melanie Lougran received an invoice for $574,041.56 from Peninsula West Utilities. |
Bar billed $575,000.00 for hydro Jordan Hotel stayed open during blackout |
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Special to The Hamilton Spectator JORDAN ------------------ during last week's massive power blackout, but owner Arie Pekar ob- jects to the cost of doing business. The lustre of booming bar sales fad- ed quickly Tuesday when Pekar opened his hydro bill and learned he'd been charged almost $575,000. "This is so funny and so unbeliev- able," says the 25-year-old Hamilton resident. "The RCMP should be bang- ing on my door looking for the weed." As 50 million people were un- plugged last Thursday, the lights shone, the music played and beer sales set August records at the village's his- toric Main Street watering hole. |
Pekar, who also owns a computer
business, had to count the digits a good 10 times before the $574,041.56 tally sank in. His monthly bill is nor- mally around $500. "I'd like to wait till it gets to a collec- tion agency," he says with a laugh. "It's not my screw-up. I can't wait to get that call asking why I haven't paid. I wonder what the interest would be on that." Pekar was charged for more than 6.4 million-kilowatt hours of electrici- ty. To put that in perspective, a 100- watt light bulb uses one kilowatt of power after 10 hours. His hotel typi- cally burns somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 kilowatt-hours per month. While not a single power blip oc- curred at the Jordan Hotel, Pekar be- lieves business was brisk thanks to area radio stations reporting that the lights |
were on in Jordan. "There were a lot of
new faces in the bar that night," says ho- tel building manager Mike Chiocchio. Peninsula West Utilities president John Alton blames the error on the tur- moil Ontario's power operators have been undergoing. Because retail hydro rates were frozen earlier this year, Pen West's computer sysetem can no longer flag billing errors and replacing the $500,000 system would prove too cost-' ly. Staff doing it manually have made a handful of - six - mistakes Pekar's bill, however, takes the cake. "It's a good thing he wasn't on auto- matic withdrawal," said Alton, adding that a meter reader was being sent to the hotel along with an apology. As for providing customers with a jolt of amusement, Alton's happy to oblige. "After this week, we need all the humour we can get," he added. |