GC and I went skating on the Rideau Canal Skateway yesterday. We weren’t actually planning to, and we didn’t have our skates with us. But it was such a gorgeous day and the ice looked so inviting, so we rented skates at the kiosk at Dow’s Lake.
While we were lacing up our rented skates, a young man came in with a pair of skates he’d rented on Saturday evening. He hadn’t gotten them back to the rental place before they closed at 10:00 pm, so here he was at 9:00 am, returning them.
“We’ll have to charge you for the whole time,” said the rental guy. “Thirteen hours at $8 an hour. That’ll be $104.00.”
The young man looked stricken, but he didn’t argue. After all, he’d left his cred card as a deposit when he rented the skates. He knew he was being ripped off but he probably figured he didn’t have any leverage.
GC and I would have fought it. It’s not like the skate rental place could have rented the skates to anybody else during the night. There was no lost revenue. We think an ethical skate rental place would have charged him for any hours that the place was open, plus maybe a $20 penalty on top of that. But to charge him for 13 hours when they were closed for at least 10 of them? Robbery! And the most likely victims of this robbery on the skateway? Tourists. I wonder if the NCC and the City know about this scammy business practice.
We had a terrific time skating. The weather was gorgeous and the ice was in good condition. We didn’t skate the whole Canal and back – just 10km – but it took us an hour and a half and it felt like a very good workout. Neither of us had been skating in several years.
We each fell down once. GC at least fell down while skating. I fell down while trying to sit on an Adirondack chair outside the Ontario Lottery Commission’s hut. It was very slippery and it skidded away from me and somehow tripped me in the process, knocking me off my skates. They should nail those things down!
After we finished skating we were feeling all rubbery-legged and virtuous, so we took ourselves out for oatmeal.
I wonder if the rental guy (maybe a minimum wage guy who just works there?) might not have had the authority to make a decision for himself about late returns. It’s a possibility.
I was watching the opening of the canal on the news and they were talking to all these adults about wearing helmets. It was unfortunate but whoever wrote the news piece made it sound like we should all be wearing helmets in case we fall down ANYWHERE. I’d better get some full body armor for crossing the street in that case.
I was very surprised most people weren’t wearing helmets Julia. The ice is slippery and hard! Just ask my shoulder and ribs… body armour would have been a good idea for us yesterday.
Yay! We must finally be a World Class Capital™®©! we certainly seem to have acquired the necessary world class tourist trappings…
Thats really awful! I miss the canal I loved doing Dow lake to the Rideau Centre.
The title of the post reminded me of last winter’s (or was it the one before?) news item where some idiots robbed a bank on Main street and escaped by walking on the frozen canal. Some people!
Wow, that’s really lame about the rental charges. I would have fought that too.
I forwarded your blog entry about the skating rental charge to the NCC’s info email and they responded. Here is the response I received:
This is a follow-up to your email CC-34696-9YJDVQ – “RCS – concessions comment”, created on 2012/02/08 2:58 PM.
Thank you for contacting the National Capital Commission (NCC) and for taking the time to bring this to our attention.
Please rest assured that upon receipt of your email, this situation was addressed with the management of the Dows Lake rental concession. We are pleased to report that their financial departement had already recognized the error and had been in contact with the customer to reimburse a significant portion of the rental charge.It is important to note that with the beginning of each new rental season, one of the major challenges for the various concessionaires is to fully train a brigade of new employees who have little or no previous experience, and to complete this training within a very short timeframe. While they do ensure to discuss all topics regarding operational procedures with new employees, on rare occasion, individual interpretation can sometimes be misconstrued at the expense of the customer.
Thankfully, in this case, management was able to quickly identify the error and rectify it without delay.Please rest assured that our goal is to offer all Skateway users a safe and enjoyable experience and as such we strive to offer the highest quality services on the Skateway to help us achieve this.
We thank you again for your feedback. If you have any additional questions, comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Telephone: 613-239-5000 or 1-800-465-1867
Teletypewriter/TTY: 613-239-5090 or 1-866-661-3530
E-mail: Info@ncc-ccn.ca
Rosanna
Client Services
National Capital Commission
http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca
Wow! FANTASTIC. Thanks Dawn.
Yay! I wonder if they took action BECAUSE of Zoom and Dawn…Peeked at the comments hoping to read something like this.
[…] other news, blog reader Dawn contacted the NCC about my Skateway Robbery post, and the young man who was charged for 13 hours of skate rental received a significant refund. […]