Village should apologize over Metrobus: councillors
Members of St. John's city council want the owners of a shopping mall to apologize to Metrobus users.
The Village Shopping Centre has told Metrobus Transit it has to remove its transfer bay from its parking lot, amid claims that mall business improved and that both vandalism and shoplifting dropped during a strike that lasted almost three months.
"Now, that's an implication," Coun. Tom Hann said at Monday evening's meeting.
"That is an intimation that the people who use our public transit go into the Village and are contributing, probably greatly the intimation is, to anything that's going on in there."
Several councillors told the meeting that they have received calls from Metrobus riders who felt demeaned and criminalized by last week's announcement.
Coun. Gerry Colbert challenged the management of the Topsail Road mall to explain the comments or apologize for making them.
"I don't think it was fair to paint the riders of Metrobus as people who are going into their shops at the Village mall and stealing and causing the vandalism," Colbert said.
Metrobus management has said it is looking for a new transfer point in the same neighbourhood before a deadline of Aug. 22.
