Busted burner

Paul Pepe said when it comes to people’s safety, it’s better to err on the side of caution.

The city’s acting waterfront project manager on Tuesday confirmed a gas-fired heater installed in the centre of the new outdoor ice rink at Prince Arthur’s Landing appeared to be overheating, so as a precaution they’ve taken the $20,000 appliance temporarily out of commission.

“It’s been a hugely popular addition to the rink, but about a week ago during one of our daily tests that we do before we open every morning we noticed we had one part of the stainless steel cabinet getting a little hotter than we were comfortable with,” Pepe said.

“We just decided, with the health and safety of our rink users being paramount to us, to shut it down, to notify the manufacturer and the installers and have a look at it to make sure it’s not something that’s going to be a problem, make sure we can rectify it.”

Pepe, who estimated about 750 people used the rink last weekend, said he hopes the fireplace will be operational again by the coming weekend.

He added it’s a minor inconvenience until that time.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s down, but it is under warranty and we certainly do expect that certain things like this will happen and we’ve taken it very seriously to look at it immediately,” Pepe said.

The timeline to have it up and running again – with temperatures expected to dip this week to more seasonal levels – will depend on the nature of the repair, Pepe said.

“Certainly we were back and forth this morning with the engineers of it, the designers, the manufacturer, to solve the problem and make sure it’s as safe as possible. And right now that’s our paramount concern,” Pepe said.