The decision was made in an in-camera meeting earlier in September, when councillors also voted to allow Lookout Sports Lounge's to continue to operate rent-free until next August.

The restaurant, owned by Mark Wilson, whose company runs five restaurants, including two others in arenas, opened in September 2006 with an agreement to pay $54,000 a year in rent plus five per cent of sales above $800,000.

Wilson said the new agreement with the city was needed as the restaurant, which his company invested $500,000 in, operates deep in the red.

"There's been absolutely zero ROI (return on investment). Like zero," he said. "We operate in a huge deficit there."

Coun. Andrew Gill said the city must take responsibility for the lack of business at the restaurant because the four-pad arena is not being run anywhere close to full capacity, but is only used 52 per cent of the time.

The efficiencies the city can realize by running four arenas under one roof mean that facility should be filled first before ice time at other arenas is booked, he said.

"We should be filling Seymour-Hannah to capacity," he said. "At least give this guy an environment in which he can do well. But 52 per cent, I don't think anyone would think a restaurant could survive with those kinds of numbers."

Earlier this year, council voted against closing down the Haig Bowl arena, deciding instead to go ahead with capital improvements.

Gill said that apart from the $350,000 in capital and the same in operating costs the city spent this year, it also missed out on an opportunity for a private partner to turn the facility into an indoor soccer field.

"They lost that now," he said.

Wilson said traffic is extremely inconsistent at Seymour-Hannah, where prime time ice is booked for figure skaters.

"There are just a couple of girls out there twirling around," he said. "They need their ice time, but the whole thought process of having that quad-pad out there, is to close down some arenas and funnel all that traffic into the quad pad."

He said the restaurant he runs in the four-pad Mohawk Centre in Hamilton does more than twice the business and the one at a twin-pad in Oakville does almost as much.