Photo courtesy Ban Kenny Chesney from Pittsburgh Facebook page
Uh oh, there's currently a war going on in Pittsburgh and it's all Kenny Chesney's fault.
After the 60,000 pounds of trash that Kenny Chesney's rowdy – and some say disrespectful – fans left for cleanup crews at Heinz Field after the Kenny Chesney concert there last month, many people were pissed. One of those allegedly upset people was North Shore parking exec, Merrill Stabile, who voiced his opinion after the concert.
Merrill told reporters, “The Kenny Chesney crowd is the most difficult crowd for our staff to work with of any of the events of the year.” He went on to say that security is a major issue, “We had a hard time getting police — a lot of police didn’t want to work this event.”
Now the Pittsburgh Steelers bosses have fired off a letter to the Stadium Authority asking them to compel Merrill to explain his comments and also asking him to kindly STFU.
According to reports, the Steelers bosses feel that Merrill is risking Kenny and other big names ever visiting Pittsburgh again. According to Jimmie Sacco, the Steelers' executive director of stadium management, Merrill's public griping has aggravated Chesney's people, putting future shows in jeopardy.
“Apparently, Mr. Stabile's main complaint was that the Chesney fans left behind too much garbage,” Sacco wrote in the letter sent to the city Stadium Authority. Sacco says the garbage wasn't really that big of a deal and that there was no serious property damage, so what's the big deal?
Stabile says the whole letter business is “ludicrous,” and that he wasn't complaining, just making a few observations about the Kenny Chesney crowd. He says he feels like the fall guy in the whole fiasco. Besides, he says his company makes money from Kenny's shows so why would he complain?
“If the Steeler organization is waiting for an apology from me, I can only characterize my sentiments with a title to an old country-western song, ‘If the phone don't ring, it's me,' ” Stabile wrote.
Let's just hope that when Kenny performs tonight in Minneapolis, the fans can keep the garbage a little more under control.
{Post-Gazette via Trib Live}
