Tavern on the Green’s Halloween Nightmare + James Gandolfini Gets Slappy

With New Year’s Eve—the biggest night of the year for advanced sales—looming large, Alex and Leo must step up to save their reputation. It seems that they have taken steps to refund valid tickets. I read hundreds of comments on the Facebook “Scammed” page. One bright lass asked:

What is the definition of “valid ticket”?
Is a “valid ticket” a ticket sold by Alex & Leo themselves leaving the sub promoters to deal with their own refunding after they have been refunded by Alex & Leo?
OR
Is a “valid ticket” a ticked deemed to be genuine by Alex & Leo after reviewing the copies that we are supposed to attach via email?
This makes a big difference so patrons know who to go after for their refunds. If this is a case is there any distinguishing factor on the “valid ticket” which would allow us to figure out if there was any chance of our ticket was a fake.
If there are fake tickets it would be better for us to know now so we know to go directly after the individual ticket seller that we used.

The definition of valid ticket will be much discussed as the companies that sell mass tickets for New Year’s must assure a public that they will end the year right. Halloween mass promotion is big business, but it’s small potatoes compared to New Year’s Eve. New Year’s is Tavern’s last night, as another operator will be moved in and Jenny Oz Leroy will find someplace new to make magical. With hundreds of thousands of events under her belt, this debacle won’t hurt her rep. When I spoke with her on the phone, she said that Tavern hadn’t been paid most of the money owed to them either. She is working hard with the promotional entity in trying to make things right. My conversations with Leo Baskin were all about him doing the right thing. Yet thousands seemed to have been hurt here, and the Facebook group seems to be talking to law enforcement. Someone will follow the money trail, and questions will eventually be answered This Halloween won’t end for quite awhile.

Speaking of another nightmare, I watched that video of James Gandolfini slap a Guest of a Guest photographer. Now in my order of things, it goes rats, roaches, leeches, agents, attorneys, paparazzi, mosquitoes, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The young photographer was one of a gazillion people with cameras heading over to the Halloween parade when he spotted the ex-Tony Soprano. James came rushing over and slapped the guy down to the ground while a cohort—presumably not Paulie Walnuts—tried in vain to wrest the camera away. Now I’m not a lawyer, but I have watched Law and Order a lot and have stayed in Holiday Inn Express hotels, but this seems to be an assault and an attempted grand larceny. Earth to James Gandolfini, you are not a mobster or real tough guy, you just played one on TV. Getting your picture took comes with the fame, and without the fame you’re just a fat ugly bully with no style or cool. You are not really the promised one. You should be ashamed.

Anyway, full press release about the Tavern fiasco on the next page.