An additional factoid came up when we studied the Hard Rock corporate welfare scheme where a billion dollar company from Florida gets $200,000 of hard working Niagara Falls’ taxpayers’ money a year to put on concerts.

Hard Rock also gets all concession rights. And wisely chose to put on concerts on the busiest nights of the year, when the city can hardly hold more tourists and every Hotel room is full. This way Hard Rock can reap maximum concessions. Pretty smart.

As part of the contract and on top of the $200,000 paid to Hard Rock, the city also pays for portable toilets.

In 2010, a FOIL request revealed the city paid $24,000 for this.

In 2011, the city paid only $1,200.

The reason for the drop?

Our carefree-with-your-money city let Hard Rock hire the portable toilet company and because they did not pay the bill, money was, for Hard Rock no object.

However, City Controller Maria Brown, when she got the $24,000 bill, thought it excessive. Her complaint led the city to use Modern Disposal last year for a savings of $22,800.

Modern already provides $2.9 million in waste removal services for the entire city and was glad to offer a reasonable price.

Now if only Modern could remove the waste known as the Hard Rock corporate welfare concert series.