Idaho hockey fans suing arena over beer prices

BOISE – A handful of Idaho hockey fans sued a Boise arena on Tuesday, saying they were duped into thinking a $7 beer contains more brew than a $4 beer.

The lawsuit says CenturyLink Arena, home of the Idaho Steelheads hockey team, defrauded customers by charging $3 more for a tall, narrow cup advertised as a “large” that holds the same amount of beer as the shorter, wider cup described as a “small.”

Arena spokesman Mike Campbell said he hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit and can’t comment.

Four fans filed the suit Tuesday in Boise’s 4th District Court against Block 22 LLC, which does business as CenturyLink Arena. Brady Peck, Michele Bonds and William and Brittany Graham are seeking $10,000 in damages.

In the lawsuit, Peck says he’s attended at least 30 events over the past three years at the arena, including a hockey game on March 5, and that he’s purchased beer each time. The other three plaintiffs say they have been attending sporting events at the venue for five years and that they bought at least one large $7 beer at each event.

“While different shapes, both cup sizes hold substantially the same amount of liquid and are not large versus small in actual capacity,” the group’s attorney, Wyatt Johnson, wrote in the lawsuit. “Defendants knowingly sold each of their beers in a similar manner at each event.”

The lawsuit came just two days after hockey fan Gwen Gibbs posted a video on YouTube that shows a patron holding a large cup of beer and pouring it into an empty small cup. In both cups, the beer reaches nearly to the brim.