Westgate Cardinal Parking Scam

Last Friday night, Dr Desert Flower and I went to Westgate - the large commercial & sports complex in western Glendale where the Arizona Cardinals & Arizona Coyotes play, and had some Mexican food at Cactus Jacks.  We'd never been to Cactus Jack's before, and the food was OK, service a little slow, but a $40 bill that included drinks was not bad.  On the wall at Cactus Jack's, was a framed poster that had both the Oregon University Ducks (I THINK it was Oregon...  Ohio has no duck mascots) and a Chicago Bears cymbal. 

I asked our uniformed waitress "do you show Bears games here?" .. and she responded distractedly "if they're on, then probably".  Slightly annoyed, I reiterated, pointing at the poster - "You have a poster that shows Bears...  do you have the games here?"  "Um, let me check, this is my first day".  Sadly, she never got back to us...  but I DID stop a bar tender who was walking past our booth, and he confirmed "Yes, my brother is the GM, and he LOVES the Bears, so they're on every Sunday."  Ok.. the Stadium is about 3 miles from my house.. a much shorter drive than the 20 miles to Old Chicago, right?

Wrong.  The Cardinals are "in town" this week.  That means, ANYWHERE within a 1/2 mile of the Cardinals stadium (Cactus Jack's included) there was a $20 parking fee.  $20?!?!  No way.  So we had to drive up to Bell Road anyways.  What a scam.  IF we wanted to go to the 12 screen multiplex theater near to Cactus Jack's, we'd STILL have to pay the $20, and then the theater would reimburse us... but no such luck at Cactus Jack's, even though we were 4 hours before game time...  lame.  Lesson learned.