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Disgruntled bar and restaurant owners, who spent thousands preparing for the V8s, have accused the Hamilton City Council of “over-hyping” the event.

About 50 members of the hospitality industry fired questions at Mayor Bob Simcock, chief executive Michael Redman and communications and marketing general manager Philip Burton during a V8 debrief yesterday.

Bar and restaurant owners said they followed council advice to double stock, and boost staff, alcohol and security for the event but predictions of up to 20,000 people flocking to the central business district after the street racing each day did not eventuate, leaving many owners out of pocket and, in some cases, in debt.

One franchised bar manager was even rumoured to have lost his job over the fizzer.

Scott’s Epicurean co-owner Mandy Scott said while she realised the council did not deliberately set the sector up for a fall, “negative things did happen to people”.

“We had the three worst trading days since we opened (eight years ago). I think people are pretty gobsmacked.”

She said it would be difficult now to win back the confidence of the industry for next year’s race.

“We did what you said, we doubled staff, food and drink. We were told ‘get out of the slow lane, be prepared’. We threw this massive party and no one came.”

Ms Scott said there were probably quite a few “annoyed and hurt people” at the meeting who were not speaking up. Ms Scott, who also operates Scott’s On Ward, and Jam Cafe within Freedom Furniture with her brother Jason Scott, added the industry was not interested in allocating blame, but it wanted the council to acknowledge the extent of the damage.

Furnace restaurant and nightclub co-owner John Lawrenson said while he broke even, he still had plenty of stock left over. He said the council’s prediction the city would swell by 170,000 people was misleading, because only about 60,000 bought tickets for all three days of racing.

Council road corridor co-ordinator Tinga Borrell apologised to the bar and cafe owners for all the extra stock they ordered, but said they needed to take control of the situation next year and make the inner city a place race-goers wanted to go.

“This is here for six years. Your business, your livelihood was affected. If you want to build on this, make it happen. CBD and Rodeo Rodeo (bars) you had to queue. What did they do different?”

Questions were asked about the fencing around “The Entertainment Zone” encompassing part of the central business district and about why security guards were allegedly charging people to get into the area or turning away under 18s, which Mr Borrell said he was investigating.

Mr Simcock suggested the group band together to plan for such events and said he would “stand beside” any industry member who felt too intimidated to speak out.

Some solutions were bandied around including re-routing the park and ride buses so people were returned to the inner city to pick up their cars.

Mr Burton said the news media was partly to blame for over-hyping the event, including repeated messages that traffic would be chaotic and to avoid the central business district.

An economic impact report of the event is due in the next few months.

Mr Burton also believed there was not enough five-star accommodation in Hamilton’s inner city, which, he said, would have brought more people into the area, hosted more of the racing teams who stayed in Auckland, and reduced some of the hundreds of day-trippers from Auckland who left straight after the racing was over each day.

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