Saying she was “troubled” by the images of the excesses that took place at the Metro Metro Festival, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, called on the organizers to take their “responsibilities” to prevent such situations from reoccurring.
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“I was troubled. Especially when you can think about safety, and people could have been injured because of the poor management of the barriers. This is an element that will have to be reviewed,” said the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, during a press scrum on Tuesday morning.
In his eyes, the overflows, whose images and videos have gone viral on the Web, are “unacceptable”.
As a reminder, the Metro Metro Festival, which presented a hip-hop program, took place over the weekend on the esplanade of the Olympic Stadium. Videos showed in particular people knocking down a security barrier to enter it without paying or climbing the Stadium to bypass admission.
The mayor calls on the organizers to take their responsibilities, indicating that the City will work with them to see “what should have been done differently and how things can be improved”.
“It was an event that was private and there are agreements that have been made. We set conditions for issuing permits. That’s what we want to see: feedback on what happened, and why in some cases, security was deficient,” added Ms. Plante.
On the side of the official opposition, we wonder whether the event was well coordinated with the City and whether there was a lack of police personnel in the area.
“Things are off to a bad start for the summer season. The administration must keep an eye on what is happening on its territory and play a facilitating role […] when a major event is planned. Especially when it takes place in a residential area,” said Abdelhaq Sari, official opposition spokesperson for public security.
In an interview with TVA on Monday, Olivier Primeau, the organizer of the event, insisted on recalling that these overflows were the result of a minority of festival-goers, but that he still took the situation “very seriously”.
“We deplore the events that have happened. Security was overwhelmed, but they did their best. I do not want us to put everyone in the same basket, ”he argued on the air.