Swap meet operator's contract extended

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Aloha Stadium's swap meet management contract, in overtime since September, will enter an extended double overtime period while officials decide how much money the lucrative business should return to stadium coffers, Stadium Authority members decided yesterday.

The same officials punted when confronted with a suggestion to ban alcohol consumption at tailgate parties in the stadium parking lot.

Concerns about the "revenue potential" of the three-days-a-week swap meet caused the Authority to cancel a new management contract and extend the current contract for another six months. That's the second contract extension granted the current swap meet operator, Consolidated Amusement Co.

Consolidated was the apparent winner of a new five-year management contract, but another bidder, Volume Services America, protested that contract award and stadium officials yesterday decided to re-bid the contract and decide on a winner by the end of May 2004.

Volume Services, which holds the food and beverage concession contract at Aloha Stadium, offered to pay the state a minimum of $260,000 more per year in its bid for the swap meet contract.

But a procurement committee, which weighed other factors including management plans, security and past experience, awarded the new contract to Consolidated.

After discussing the issue for nearly an hour behind closed doors, members of the Authority voted to cancel the new contract and start the bidding all over again.

Representatives of Consolidated and Volume Services declined comment after the meeting.

In other business, Authority chairman Anthony Guerrero said he'd received a letter suggesting a ban on alcohol consumption by parking lot tailgate partiers.

Guerrero suggested, without opposition, that Authority members table the matter for the time being.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2447.