Children's Grand Park Amusement Ride Operation Abruptly Halted ... "Years of Unpaid Usage Fees"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The amusement park at Children's Grand Park in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, which has been operating for over 40 years, has been closed.

The operator of the amusement facilities at Children's Grand Park, Children's Grand Park Amusement Park Co., Ltd., announced on the 25th that it would abruptly suspend the operation of the amusement park facilities.

The amusement park stated, "Due to the non-cooperation and coercion by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Facilities Corporation, who should actively support citizen safety and public convenience, we had no choice but to make this decision," and claimed that Seoul City has effectively restricted business activities by placing provisional seizures on all banks and credit cards used by the amusement park.

The amusement park criticized, "The extreme measures taken by Seoul Facilities Corporation are desk-bound administration and selfish actions based on self-preservation that do not consider the safety of employees and citizens even during the COVID-19 crisis."

On the other hand, Seoul Facilities Corporation, which manages the amusement facilities, stated that the amusement park operator had not properly paid park usage fees and recently failed to pay the fees for the facilities due to a decrease in visitors caused by the spread of COVID-19, leading the corporation to take procedural steps to secure claims.

The corporation explained, "We have reduced usage fees by about 3.7 billion KRW over the past 10 years since 2010 and agreed to increase amusement ride fees, providing maximum financial and institutional support within the law to help the operator's recovery. In particular, the unpaid usage fees are related to 2018 and 2019, which have nothing to do with COVID-19, and the unpaid interest on these fees has already been decided through court dispute mediation, but the operator is still in arrears."

The corporation also pointed out, "In February, the operator unilaterally closed the park without prior consultation, citing difficulty in generating profits due to decreased visitors from COVID-19, and then reopened the amusement park in April during the peak season, repeatedly suspending and resuming operations without prior consultation, causing confusion among citizens."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.