AEG manages the old Sports Arena – now Pechanga Arena – and they went to court to prevent the city from turning over how much it makes to the group that owns the San Diego Gulls that is bidding to take over management
By Andrew Keatts / Voice of San Diego
The city of San Diego finds itself in the middle of what’s becoming a bitter fight between the company that runs Pechanga Arena and the venue’s most high-profile tenant.
But the central contention of that dispute should be moot by July, when the two sides are scheduled to hash it out in court.
Last month, San Diego officials started accepting bids to run Pechanga Arena – the Midway district venue long known as the Sports Arena – where the current operator, AEG, pays roughly $800,000 a year in rent. AEG, in return, books events at the arena and gets to collect the revenue those events bring in.
The bidding process kicked off a public records fight between AEG and the group that owns the San Diego Gulls, which is also bidding to operate the arena.
AEG is required to provide the city with its audited financial statements each year as part of its lease. The Gulls ownership submitted a public records request to the city for those statements to assist in its bid preparation.
The city attorney’s office determined that those financial statements are indeed public records, and was ready to turn them over before AEG intervened in court to prevent them from doing so. They contend the documents contain trade secrets.
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