Water Co. Wins SARStock Case

Toronto promoter Johnathan Vrozos and Molson Sport and Entertainment have been ordered to pay $1.4 million in damages to a small bottling company over a years-old concert contract.

The 2003 SARStock featured AC/DC, Rush, The Guess Who and headliners The Rolling Stones, reportedly drawing 450,000 to Toronto’s Downsview Park on a hot July day.

In the leadup to the concert, indigenous-owned Wahta Natural Spring Water scored exclusive rights to sell bottled water at the event, a major get for the young firm.

Wahta kicked into high gear, renting refrigerated trailers to transport millions of bottles of water to the park to sell at $3 a pop, according to court documents obtained by the Toronto Star. Day of show the company sold just 250,000 units.

“It is clear that at every turn, that trust and confidence was thoroughly abused by Vrozos for his own personal gain in ways that were utterly dishonest and gratuitous,” the Ontario Court of Appeal wrote.

For starters, Wahta’s contract wasn’t quite as exclusive as the company had thought.

“Without Wahta’s knowledge, Vroszos entered into a number of deals with other vendors in which he gave them the right to sell water at the concert,” the court said.
Vrozos also reportedly gave away hundreds of thousands of bottles of the company’s water without providing reimbursement and took more than $600,000 in cash from a Wahta trailer following the show.

Vrozos, who has operated the city’s Palais Royale ballroom and the Brunswick House tavern, was ordered to pay more than $800,000 in damages and Molson will pay more than $600,000, the paper said.