Chess spat ends in draw
Park Royal mall gives players own games area, food court play checked
A prolonged, strategic battle between a ragtag gang of chess players and Park Royal mall in West Vancouver concluded this weekend with both sides declaring victory.
Managers abandoned their campaign to end the decades-long tradition of chess matches at the mall and agreed to let play continue — just not in the food court.
Instead, a new chess space with room for up to 28 players will be created near the Brick and Osaka stores on the upper level of the south side of the mall, according to a statement by Park Royal.
Rick Amantea, the mall’s vicepresident of community partnerships and development, said the company seeks to embrace diversity and create a vibrant community environment, adding he was pleased that an agreement was reached that worked for both parties.
“Park Royal chose to conduct negotiations with the chess players privately in the hopes that a mutually agreeable arrangement could be made, and are grateful to everyone who reached out to pro- vide their point of view and wants them to know that their comments were taken to heart,” the statement said.
Park Royal has helped more than 100 registered charities and notfor profit groups with funds and in-kind support, according to the mall.
As part of the agreement, Park Royal and the chess players plan to host a joint community chess event at the mall later this year.
George Ingham, 80, who has played chess at Park Royal for half a century, applauded his fellow players for showing “major resilience” and said the relationship with the mall appears to have returned to a co-operative one.
“There’s no more hassling,” Ingham said, noting that he had played chess at the food court on Saturday without issue and intended to go back again Sunday.
Last month, mall management sent one of the players a letter ordering the group to “cease the use” of the Park Royal food court or face serious consequences.
“If your group fails to comply it will give us no alternative but to reach out to the West Vancouver Police Department,” Park Royal general manager Karen Donald wrote in the March 22 letter.
As West Vancouver residents and community groups decried the threat, offers to host the chess matches flooded in from Park Royal tenants Whole Foods Market and White Spot as well as community centres, businesses and malls across the region.
Ingham offered a play-by-play of the key moves taken after mall managers surveyed the resistance, and, he claimed, after Park Royal’s owners caught wind of the controversy.
Rather than scattering their pieces in retreat, the mall managers arranged them in a defensive position around the food court, and sacrificed its own ground beside The Brick.
The chess players pounced on the opening (about 160 steps from the food court if you ask Ingham, and 105 if you ask the mall), and then countered by asking to remain at the usual spot until a promised set of tables and chairs are provided.
Ingham, still a little hot from the battle, characterized the mutual victory as the mall trying to save face over the fiasco and the players letting them do so.
“It was all wrong. The whole thing was wrong and it was really badly done,” Ingham said, adding it seemed mall management “didn’t understand the strength of West Van.”
Ingham is not ready to let his guard down yet, recalling other flare-ups over the past few decades.
“They can declare it a victory. They got us out of the cafeteria,” Ingham said. “What it’s our job to do is to make sure we don’t get any closer to the door,” he said, laughing.