Glendale City Manager: Coyotes still haven't paid their rent.

Last night The Athletic's Katie Strang reported that the Arizona Coyotes risk becoming essentially a homeless franchise unless they can buck up $1.3 million in unpaid taxes before December 20th, 2021.

From Strang's column for The Athletic:

On Dec. 3, the Arizona Department of Revenue filed a tax lien notice in Maricopa County against IceArizona Hockey LLC, the company that owns the Coyotes, for more than $1.3 million in unpaid state and city taxes. The City of Glendale, which has been locked in a lengthy dispute with the Coyotes over delinquent bills, has already notified ASM, the Gila River Arena management company, and Coyotes team president and CEO Xavier Gutierrez of the cancellation of the Coyotes’ business license.

The Coyotes, according to the notice sent to ASM and to the team, will have until 5 p.m. MST on Dec. 20 to pay the outstanding arena invoices from the 2020-21 season, as well as the outstanding tax bill. If they do not settle up the remaining debt by that time, the City of Glendale has instructed ASM to deny team employees access to the arena and the offices within the arena used as administrative space. Arena vendors would also be locked out.

- Katie Strang

The team released a statement through Coyotes insider Craig Morgan, saying essentially that they simply forgot to pay their bills.

From Morgan:

“We have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened and initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error. Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. 

"We will make sure that by tomorrow morning, the Arizona Coyotes are current on all of our bills and owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure that nothing like this can ever possibly happen again.”

- Craig Morgan

Then later today the Coyotes, again through Morgan, made a statement that all of their bills have been paid:

Except... whoops they haven't actually paid their rent.

Mike Stephens of The Hockey News reports that while the Coyotes have paid their back taxes, they still haven't paid their rent at Gila River Arena:

Oh... and the city of Glendale isn't buying the "human error" excuse either.

What a joke of a franchise. Just move them to Houston already...