We were supposed to be inside of a club that had an open bar celebrating the new year... instead we were in standing on the sidewalk outside of the club while firemen and police officers were kicking out the patrons already inside. The event was supposed to be from 9pm until 3am, there was supposed to be an open bar and a champagne toast at midnight to celebrate 2012. We arrived at the club around 10-10:05pm and were told that there was a fire marshal inside of the club and no one could enter.
About 45 minutes passes and people start getting a little upset because we still were not allowed entry into the club and were told it will be 5 more minutes. 30 more minutes go by and we are still standing on the sidewalk at which point 3 fire trucks pulled up to the building followed by 3 police cars. We waited and waited and finally at 11:45pm Jeffery Magids comes outside of the club (even though we had been asking to speak to him for about an hour) and decides to finally tell us the truth (or from what he says).
So apparently, according to emails following this event, someone called the fire marshall on the club and when he arrived he asked the bouncer of the event how many people are inside, the bouncer did not know and so the fire marshal told him he could not let anyone else in. Jeffery Magids claims that the party was not over sold, everyone who came to the club had to present a paper ticket that was printed online after paying for the event. So you would think if you have all of the paper tickets for the people already inside of the event it should take but may 15-20 minutes to count.
So anyway at 1145 Jeffery finally comes outside to address the 100 people that they made wait in line for an hour and half and says "the fire marshall is shutting us down, we have ordered cabs 25 cabs for everyone to take yall to our sister club 2 miles away" Ok so lets think about this, 25 cabs... 100 people already waiting outside... (from what I saw) at least 300 people getting kicked out... How long do you think those 25 cabs could get everyone over to their "sister" club.
During all of this we finally got a chance to speak to Jeffery and asked him what was going on, and expressed out disappointment about the fact that it was now about 10 minutes until midnight, we have been waiting almost 2 hours and we are going to wind up spending new years eve, either in a cab or on the sidewalk. Jeffery asked what we wanted him to do, we replied we want a refund, he replied that it was impossible to issue a refund tonight but he could the next day, he even went as far as to provide his friends personal cell phone number and said call him tomorrow and we will issue a refund. There are about 18-25 witnesses that can back up his claim that he made.
So the cabs didnt show up in time and we spent new years on the sidewalk, and eventually just went home because it was already 12:10, no cabs, and by the time we would have made it in through the crowd we would have had less than an hour and half to celebrate. The next day I emailed Jeffery about the refund and get a generic reply saying that they apologized for what happened and they would be meeting in the next few days to discuss refunds.
About a week goes by and I get another email asking people to email them by Jan 9th if we did not get into the club and they would issue a credit to the bar that is good for one year. At this point I was furious, I paid to celebrate New Years with 25 of my closest friends and family, had to wait in line for almost 2 hours to be told they are shutting down the club, was told we would get our money back, and now to make up we will get issued a credit? That is like saying you bought playoff tickets, they were invalid and to make up we would get issued regular season tickets.
So I emailed Jeffery back and said that this option was unacceptable and that I demanded a refund. Now from December 9th until about January 7th every single piece of communication about this event came from Jeffery Magids, all of a sudden on January 8th I get an email from someone named Amir Ansari saying "we are not issuing cash refunds for this event" I went on to reply "well you employee Jeffery Magids said he was going to issue a refund and I have about 20 witnesses that said they heard him say that" to which I got a reply said that Jeffery Magids is not an employee of Vintage?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
So even though he was the one who handled all of the ticket sales, he was the one who individually email people if something was wrong with their ticket, he was the one who addressed the crowd waiting outside of the club, he was the one who called the cabs to get people over to their "sister" club, and he was the one copied on EVERY single email communication that went out about the event including the email I got from Amir Ansari... All of a sudden he is not an employee of the club and is not authorized to offer any refunds to anyone.
I have pictures and videos of the event, I have record of every single email that was sent back and forth about what happened that night, and I even opened a case with paypal because that was the method used to pay. Now I am being told that I can get a credit, is the credit going to be for open bar from 9pm-3am, because that is what I paid for? It is unbelievable to think that these people ruined New Years for about 400 people and made it even worse for the 100 that were forced to wait in line outside and they dont even have the decency to offer refunds for something that they advertised and did not deliver on.
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