Concert promoter Evenko has stopped selling tickets to next year's Formula E race after the new mayor caught wind of what was going on.
The Montreal Canadiens-owned Evenko says it began selling the tickets over the summer, billing the 2018 race much like this past year's, with the same course through downtown that angered many residents and businesses that were cut off from the rest of the city.
At some point on Thursday afternoon, after Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante voiced her surprise the promoter had begun selling tickets for 2018, Evenko updated its online ticket-selling service to say tickets would be on sale "soon."
The race this past July caused a storm of controversy; business owners and residents complained of being cut off from the rest of town, drivers were upset about the road closures in the downtown core, taxpayers were upset Montreal paid at $23 million for an event others have hosted for free, and former mayor Denis Coderre was accused of keeping the amount of giveaway tickets under wraps for months.
Coderre and Evenko confirmed a few weeks ago about half of the tickets to the first edition of the race were given away.
Earlier this week, Sylvain Vincent, President of Montréal c'est électrique!—the group mandated by the city to organize the race—said Coderre and his office knew the final sales numbers to this past summer's race months ago.
He said it was Evenko that recommended not published the giveaway numbers, and Coderre agreed.
Plante pledged during the 2017 municipal election she would move the race, and told reporters she was happy to hear that race organizers have said they are open to moving the Formula E to the site of the Montreal F1 Grand Prix at Parc Jean-Drapeau.