Popular Portland area venue responds to repeated safety violation allegations

Cell phone video obtained by Clackamas County and shared with KATU News shows the chaotic moments brewing at the Mount Hood Center.
Thousands of people shoved their way into a concert that appeared to be already overcrowded. Security guards were overwhelmed and pushed out of the way.
As the concert continued, many could be heard yelling and screaming.
Last month Clackamas County deemed Mount Hood Center a public and chronic nuisance. Staff with the venue denied those claims.
The decision by the county has impacted many people, including a high school prom on Saturday night. The school had to move to a new venue at the last minute.
"We've never been over capacity by the occupancy ratings,” Director of Operations Aaron Shelly told KATU’s Victor Park.
"You say, you've never been over capacity, but I want to show you this video here. Does this not look over capacity to you?" Park asked Shelly who responded, “So, this was a private event. It was a scary situation and we absolutely agree that event was mismanaged by the company that rented the property. We would never allow them to be back on the property again."
"How can you make sure something like that doesn't happen?" Park asked.
"My team, after that event took place, we sat down together and went through a list of discussions of what we can do better in the future," Shelly responded.
He said that includes not having events like large concerts.
However, authorities claim the March 16 concert is one of many repeated violations impacting the safety of others and video from a December rodeo event appeared to show workers mistreating a bull on the ground.
"Those folks are no longer allowed to do events of any sort in our facility," Shelly added.
County officials said the event center has unpermitted buildings, construction and improper land-use permits.
The owner claimed the county has been sitting on requests for events the county said the area does not allow.
"We've worked with them to give them a list of what they could use the property for, even though they don't have an approval yet,” Jeffrey Munns, Attorney for Clackamas County, told KATU.
"What they're doing right now, they haven't filed the applications for those uses, and many of those are not going to be allowed in that zone," Munns added.
Although the venue had been forced to shut its doors to memorable events, like weddings, Shelley said they are helping relocate events to other venues.
"Secondly, we've already issued refunds already. We did that within the first 36 hours of receiving the shutdown notices," Shelly added.
Meanwhile, Mount Hood Center is facing fines and could be banned from holding some events.
katu.com/news/local/popular-p...
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#KATU #Katu2abc #Portland #LosFarmerz #MtHoodCenter #Equestrian #Concert #ViralVideo

[@terenceflanagan1225]

You can almost hear the banjos

[@silverfeathered1]

As a side...
How does one get that powerful note on your door? Even the note itself is protected?
Seems like a nice loophole to protect against squatters in vacant properties.

[@MarvinThiessen]

Manager says he will sit down with his team and "talk it over". With no backup plan in place prior to this incident, manager needs a remedial course on crowd management, or the owner needs to find a new manager. They're lucky there were no casualties.

[@duvine3882]

So much money lost, a wasted opportunity as if those events are over capacity with supply & demand for multilevel venues.

[@davidoneal434]

Knowing how Portland has been doing things. I maybe be wrong, but it would surprise me if this country was trying to take over this venue. And force the now owners to sell. Because they can't cover the cost of legal actions put against or doing any of the repairs or upgrades without any revenue coming in. So that the county can pickup the property on the cheap. Or by some kind of fault because of falling behind some kind of payments

[@user-kq8qo8go8j]

Major animal cruelty occurred at the event.The video is there so why no arrests.

[@jobella2656]

Packed like an stampede, at least there's no more covid as no one there avoids ir or so it seems.